Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  At first he saw but one of them, for the very good reason that they did not travel together; and more particularly because Mademoiselle Zoé had boldly treated herself to a first class ticket, and was unaware that her dear mistress was behind her in a second class carriage.

  While Hilaire had decked himself out for the occasion, Mademoiselle Zoé had not allowed herself to be outdone by him. She was sporting a pink frock, with hat to match, both of which achieved some success before she arrived at Nice.

  Though she threw herself into M. Hilaire’s arms the moment she saw him, it was not from overforwardness nor lack of guilelessness, but because her heart was brimming over with thankfulness to him for having found her a situation as second lady’s maid to the celebrated dancer, Nina Noha, and in such a beautiful neighborhood. It is needless to say that she had given Virginie “the chuck” with a glad heart.

  All this was vouched for by hugs and kisses which made M. Hilaire and several passengers laugh, for they could not tear themselves away from the contemplation of the youthful traveler and her pink frock and hat.

  It was at that splendid moment of triumph that a lady of opulent corsage loomed into sight from no one knew where and, waving her arms as though she were demented, set to work to break her umbrella alternately over the back of Zoé and the back of Hilaire.

  Hilaire did not wait to hear more. He saw at a glance whence the blows came, and took himself off with an alacrity which passengers, who were jostling each other as they left the station, considered devoid of manners. He did not stop, however, until he was outside the station, where, under cover of his car, he could await events. As a measure of precaution he set the engine going.

  To his amazement he did not have to wait long. Mademoiselle Zoé appeared, surrounded by a delighted mob. She held in her hand a few shreds of her hat, from which the feathers had departed, and her nose was bleeding.

  Hilaire did not at first show his face, but when she passed close to him, searching on either side, obviously endeavoring to find him, and when he had made sure that Virginie was still in the station, he stepped forward quickly, flung her, rather than seated her, in the car, leaped to his seat, and drove off in a great style amid the shouts and cheering of an enthusiastic public.

  They had not gone far outside the town when he turned round to ask Zoé, through the lowered window, what she had done with his wife.

  “I gave her a pretty good dressing down,” returned the charming Zoé. “We were both of us hauled off to the chief inspector’s office. They took down our names and addresses. As my papers were in order they let me go, but as Madame had no papers at all they put her in the train which was starting for Paris.”

  “How was it that she had no papers?”

  “Because I pinched them before I left. Look, here they are!” exclaimed softly the artful creature, opening her wrist-bag.

  M. Hilaire betrayed such inordinate satisfaction and steered the car so wildly, that Mademoiselle Zoé implored him not to afford Madame Hilaire yet awhile the joy of becoming a widow. Thereupon M. Hilaire suggested that Zoé should come and sit on the seat beside him, a proposal which she straightway accepted.

  “Madame certainly had an idea that I was leaving,” said Zoé.

  “Don’t let’s speak about her,” returned M. Hilaire. “Let’s hope that she’ll have a pleasant journey. Don’t let’s bother about her.”

  M. Hilaire still bore the mark of Madame Hilaire’s umbrella on his left cheek, and this injury, though it was ever so slight, did not incline him to pity her troubles overmuch.

  “You can be easy now, my dear Zoé. You will enter the service of important people. The celebrated Dr. Ross is going to take you to the not less celebrated Nina Noha, who will know how to protect you better than I do, worse luck, from Madame Hilaire’s unreasonable ways; and if, by chance, she takes it into her head to return to this part, where she is not wanted, those people will find means of getting rid of her for us.”

  Having uttered these reassuring words, M. Hilaire and Mademoiselle Zoé had nothing more to do but to admire the landscape. It was very beautiful. They were driving along the sea front on the road from Cannes.

  The air was soft, though great clouds were beginning to rise in the sky, driven by the west wind, which usually portended some degree of atmospheric disturbance for the approaching night. But Hilaire and Zoé were intent only upon the passing hour. Hilaire’s heaven at that moment was in his heart, so that the other heavens, with their gathering clouds, scarcely interested him. With Zoé at his side he forgot everything, even the order which his master, M. de Saynthine, had given him to be at the corner of the Rue Basse, in the old town, at five o’clock punctually with the car, with the hood up and the iron shutters.

  An order like that was, of course, at once brought to the knowledge of M. Casimir, and M. Casimir himself gave M. Hilaire to understand that he must on no account fail to keep the appointment. M. Casimir, in tact, added: “It’s quite likely that I myself shall want a car. It’s very good of M. de Saynthine to lend me his!”

  But these instructions, which at first aroused the Dodger’s interest, were, at that moment, no more than an unsubstantial trifle in a lover’s brain!

  M. Hilaire’s cheeks flushed under the look, at once mischievous and grateful, which the handsome Zoé threw at him. He was conscious that she pressed closer to him, and his steering became slightly erratic.

  “How well you drive, Monsieur Hilaire,” she said. “You must teach me; will you?”

  “Why, of course; whenever you like — the car doesn’t belong to me!”

  “How funny you are, Monsieur Hilaire. One never gets bored with you. Will you have a plum?”

  “Do you mean to say you’ve brought some preserved fruit with you?”

  “I filled my bag with them. Here, do you recognize your own plums? The real, the identical fruit as sold at Hilaire’s up-to-date grocery stores. The old and the new world united!”

  Mlle. Zoé opened her small valise and M. Hilaire saw that it contained several paper bags, bearing his name and address, full of preserved fruit. It was a delicate attention and softened M. Hilaire’s heart beyond measure, so that his eyes grew moist, and he could not refrain from saying to his pretty companion:

  “Look here, my dear Zoé, I must give you a kiss.” And they kissed each other as they devoured the fruit. At that juncture they heard a great clatter on their right. It was the train to Paris, steaming towards Marseilles, for at this spot the permanent way runs for several miles along the sea front.

  But the train as it plunged forward made less noise than a certain lady of our acquaintance who was standing at the door of one of the carriages and began literally to bellow. The fury of her invective rose above the song of the wheels, and the frenzy of her gestures scared the man guarding the line. “Virginie.... It’s Virginie!”

  “Madame.... It’s Madame!”

  It was indeed Madame, and she was in a mighty temper.

  It must be stated that the speed of the car was equal to that of the train, so that for a while car and train traveled abreast, and the lady at the carriage door did not miss a single iota of what was happening in the car. She recognized M. Hilaire. She recognized Zoé. She recognized the plums!

  In her indignation she leaned so far out of the window that certainly but for the intervention of kind-hearted persons in the carriage, who clung to her skirts, a grievous accident might have been feared.

  “Be careful, Virginie, you will get yourself run over,” shouted M. Hilaire, who, cherishing no ill-will against her, advised her to reserve herself for a less violent end.

  “Would you like a plum, Madame?” asked Mdlle. Zoé, holding out a bag on which the poor lady could discern quite plainly the name and superscription of the “up-to-date grocery stores.”

  “Ladies... Gentlemen... That’s my husband.... My husband with my shop-girl!... They’re gallows-birds!”

  This last imputation greatly ruffled M. Hilaire, who slackene
d his pace, while Mdlle. Zoé rapped out as the train sped past them:

  “Enjoy yourself, old dear!”

  “Now we can go back to Nice,” said Hilaire. “She’s sure not to be there! But when she does return I shall get it hot.”

  The prospect of Madame Hilaire’s reappearance damped his enthusiasm, and he suddenly fell into a state of despondency. He remembered in his dejection the explicit injunctions which both M. de Saynthine and Chéri-Bibi had given hem. He swore like a trooper and put on full speed.

  “You look quite upset all of a sudden,” said Zoé. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. I’m late.”

  “I say, don’t smash us to pieces. When do I go to my place?”

  “To-morrow.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To the hotel where I’ve booked a room for you.” He could not very well confess to Zoé that having himself engaged a room in the town he had at first taken one for her in his own hotel, but that by chance Chéri-Bibi heard of it, and burst into a violent fit of anger at the thought that M. Hilaire should be guilty of an act contrary to the proprieties. M. Hilaire had in vain indignantly protested that his liking for his shop-assistant was an entirely platonic one, and that up to that time they had but exchanged plums, not kisses. “One is more than enough,” replied Chéri-Bibi with authority, rolling his big eyes. “‘Sufficient for the day’..

  “Is it in your hotel?” asked Zoé.

  “No,” returned M. Hilaire, reddening.

  CHAPTER XXII

  MONSIEUR TOULOUSE’S SHOP

  DIDIER HAD NO need to inquire his way in order to find Monsieur Toulouse’s shop. The previous night, by a sort of fatality, as has been said, he stopped outside the squalid-looking house and its odd signboard.

  Feeling convinced that it was not in the interests of those masters in the art of blackmail to play him any trick, and being himself prepared to make every possible sacrifice which might at least give him time for reflection, and to decide whether he should adopt a graver course, he was by no means alarmed as to the immediate consequences of his visit.

  He understood quite well that, for the purposes of certain business in which he required the cooperation of a man like the Burglar, M. de Saynthine greatly preferred that the work should be done in the semi-darkness of a room at the back of a shop.

  Nevertheless Captain d’Haumont took his revolver with him by way of precaution. He felt that his forces were returning to him; and it has been seen in the course of this narrative that his strength was above the common.

  It was thus with a confident step that he made his way through the labyrinth of narrow streets in the old town and proceeded straight to Monsieur Toulouse’s shop.

  The day was closing in. Moreover it grew dark early between the buildings in those mean alleys where two carts could not pass each other. Glimmers of light began to pierce the shop-windows.

  At the back of M. Toulouse’s shop, in the dusk, stood a candle, by the light of which Didier recognized the Burglar crouching behind his counter like a watch-dog in its kennel. As soon as his eyes fell on the Captain, he came towards him with a profusion of bows, bidding him welcome, and declaring that he was “quite honored by the presence of a hero like Captain d’Haumont.” He asked permission to close the door on account of the draught.

  Didier did not, at first, answer this contemptible preamble. He took a good look round him at the clothes which stocked the miserable hole, and, observing nothing suspicious, allowed Monsieur Toulouse to lock and bolt the door.

  “Now no one will come and disturb us,” explained the second-hand clothes dealer.

  Had the Burglar been able to see the peculiar movement which was taking place in the street, he might not perhaps have expressed himself in such positive terms. As a matter of fact, a force of police was surrounding the house, and indeed guarding the neighboring streets.

  For some time past, robberies, burglaries, attempts at murder, the work of one and the same gang, had followed one upon the other. It was known that the gang’s headquarters were in the old town, and that they were assisted by a number of confederates who screened them from police investigation.

  The Caid’s murder was included in the same series of crimes. A detective-inspector who had often observed him loitering about the streets of Nice, with his rugs on his shoulders, identified his corpse, and wondered what had become of the rugs which the Mohammedan always carried about with him. He discovered identical rugs in Monsieur Toulouse’s shop.

  The behaviour of the Burglar seemed to be suspicious, and the shop was kept under observation. At nightfall men were seen calling on him, slipping into the shop by stealth. In short, the police came to the conclusion that they need not look farther afield to discover the gang’s lair, and that if they organized a trap, they would be able to catch the entire fraternity at a single stroke.

  The trap was laid for that very evening. Orders were given that visitors should be allowed to enter Monsieur Toulouse’s shop, and “nabbed” on the quiet as they came out.

  It is quite likely that the police had already seen that afternoon several interesting figures call at the shop, but Didier attracted their curiosity more particularly, because of the care with which he was enveloped in a huge overcoat with the collar turned up, and of the difficulty of seeing even the tip of his nose under his soft felt hat with the brim pressed down over his face.

  Though Didier had started off without fear to keep his disagreeable appointment, he was by no means anxious to be recognized as he entered the shop. Thus he had chosen to wear an overcoat and a hat in which he might consider himself safe from observation.

  When the Burglar had locked the door, Didier in a calm voice said:

  “I may tell you that I am armed, and at the least action which I don’t like, I will shoot you all like dogs.”

  “Oh, my dear Captain, you must have formed a very bad opinion of us since our last meeting. You are armed, you say. Well, I am not armed. I’ve no weapon in my hands or in my pockets. And I assure you that my friends are not armed any more than I am. We must convince you, my dear Captain, that you are here among friends. No, no, you haven’t any better friends in Nice or anywhere else than ourselves.”

  “Where are the others?” asked Didier. “Don’t let us spin out the business. I am not here to please myself.”

  “If you’ve come here to please us I think I can promise you that you will leave the place with a light heart, a mind at rest, and free from any feeling of remorse. When a man does what he can, in life, he does what he must. We shan’t ask you to do anything you ‘can’t’ do, my dear Captain. Would you mind stepping into the room behind the shop? That’s where our friends are waiting for you.”

  “Lead on.”

  The Burglar bowed and “led on.” Didier followed with his hand in his pocket clutching his revolver, prepared for anything that might happen.

  He at once saw, seated at a table, two men whom he recognized. One was the Parisian, who now called himself de Saynthine, and whom he had so roughly handled the previous evening for persecuting Giselle and the other was the Joker, who was dressed in black, looking as serious as a solicitor’s clerk. He had before him, on the table, a morocco leather portfolio.

  M. de Saynthine had risen and, pointing to a chair facing him on the other side of the table, begged Captain d’Haumont to be seated. The Joker nodded slightly, and straightway opened his portfolio, taking from it sundry papers. Pens, paper and an inkstand lay on the table.

  “I will sit down when the Burglar, who is standing beside me, has taken his place with you on your side of the table,” said d’Haumont, who seemed in no way perturbed.

  “Bless me, Captain d’Haumont, my name is Monsieur Toulouse, and I beg you not to forget it, but apart from that there’s nothing Monsieur Toulouse wouldn’t do to please you.” So saying, the Burglar took up his position on the other side of the table; and Didier sat down, placing his revolver in front of him. M. de Saynt
hine smiled.

  “I assure you that this inkstand is all that we shall need,” interposed the Joker.

  “I’m listening,” said Didier, throwing a swift glance round the room. He was placed in such a way that there was no danger from the rear. The room in which he found himself was, like the shop itself, filled with every variety of “reach-me-down.” Didier had no need to fear that some confederate was hiding among the toggery. He observed that for the most part it was hanging from the ceiling on iron rods. Moreover it was inconceivable that the Parisian and his gang would admit any other miscreant into the secret.

  The room looked out on to a small courtyard, with a glass roof, the high walls of which could be seen. A door with a hatch over it led on to another courtyard. This door was locked. It was through the hatch over the door that Didier caught sight of the courtyard’s glass roof. The room was connected with the shop not by a door but by an opening, and, as the two rooms were not on the same level, the shop was reached by means of three worn-out steps.

  The Burglar was seated on the Parisian’s right, while the Joker was on his left. They looked like a full bench of judges, and as a matter of course the presiding judge, M. de Saynthine, opened the proceedings.

  “We need not indulge in unnecessary words,” he said. “I will at once come to the point. When Captain d’Haumont left his gold-digging business in Guiana, it was in a particularly prosperous state, so that he was able to bring to Europe with him something like two million francs’ worth of gold dust. Arrived in France, Captain d’Haumont married wealth. Madame d’Haumont brought him as her marriage portion, to begin with, her personal fortune which was left to her by her maternal great-aunt, amounting to seven hundred thousand francs.”