Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  CHAPTER VII

  BARON D’ASKOF

  AT HALF-PAST THREE in the morning Baron d’Askof entered Sonia Liskinne’s boudoir by the secret door. He sat down and waited for the Major, who, contrary to his custom, was late. The Baron was not a little surprised, and a quarter of an hour went by. He began to grow impatient.

  His eyes fell on the table and observed a kind of Indian sachet which he had never seen before. What was that strange article doing there? Inquisitive, he took it up and opened it.

  Letters? Yes, letters in the Major’s handwriting. He read them. And as he read them his lips twisted in a wicked smile.

  The letters dated from several months back:

  “BEAUTIFUL SONIA, “I have seen you in my dreams all night long, and yet I am not in love with you, but I will not answer for the future if you continue to display so much charm before such an unworthy object as myself. Forget that you are a woman and we may work together and, between us, accomplish great things. Try to please me by looking less beautiful. And above all do not dress as you did last night nor wear your hair as you did last night nor smile when you speak to me as you did last night. When you are with me endeavour to be the reverse of that which you were last night or I shall lose my head — my poor head of which I am so much in need. That is understood, is it not, my dear comrade?”

  Another letter finished with the words:

  “They are madly in love with you, and I do not wonder at them. I am not in love with you. It is something more than that.”

  Another:

  “I shall never forget the two hours spent with you. You were the most wonderful of women this afternoon. How can I do without you?”

  Another, making an appointment:

  “To-night we will work for a couple of hours in our dear little boudoir. You may count upon me.

  Yes, I have been thinking of you. You amaze me with your reproaches. You are never out of my thoughts. I can do nothing without you. I have a feeling of never-ending admiration for you. Did you receive my flowers?”

  And on another only the words:

  “Thank you. There’s no one like you.”

  Baron d’Askof returned the letters to the sachet and placed it in his pocket. Just then he seemed to hear a murmur. He pricked up his ears. He was not mistaken. He caught the sound of voices in Sonia’s room. He rose to his feet, went quietly behind the Coromandel screen, lifted the heavy curtain, and heard their two voices behind the door. Then he let the curtain fall and turned to his seat deadly pale. Suddenly he darted up and left the boudoir by the secret door.

  A few minutes later a man wearing the kepi and cape of an officer in the octroi left Little Buddha’s cabaret, walked up the street, crossed the railway bridge, and stepped into a closed car waiting at the corner of a narrow street at right angles. He told the chauffeur to drive to the Place du Palais Bourbon, and the car darted off at express speed. The man put his head out of the window and looked behind. He noticed that another car, coming from he knew not where, was following him at a like pace, whereupon Baron d’Askof, for it was he, withdrew to the back of his car, divested himself of his cape and kepi, lifted a cushion, opened a locker, drew from it a hat and great coat, put them on, and waited. Lavobourg lived within a stone’s throw of the Chamber of Deputies, and it was to Lavobourg’s house that the Baron was driving....

  He alighted from the car and rang the bell. Before the door was opened he was able, on the one hand, to perceive at the end of the street skirting the Palais Bourbon the car which had followed him and had now pulled up near the quay at a spot where it was easy to keep watch on the door of Lavobourg’s house, and, on the other hand, to perceive at the corner of the Rue du Palais two figures which undoubtedly were those of men belonging to the detective service.

  The door opened. D’Askof ran up to the first floor and rang the bell again. A manservant opened it.

  “Tell M. Lavobourg that I must see him at once.”

  Just then the study door opened and Lavobourg himself appeared.

  “What’s the matter? Come in.”

  D’Askof hurried into the study. His face was still distraught.

  “The matter is that you are being...” And he whispered a word, followed by details.

  “What are you talking about? Why do you come here at such a moment?”

  “Do you consider what I have just told you of no importance?”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Well, my dear fellow, go to her flat and we’ll discuss it again when you come back.”

  “The Major! Why, it can’t be. I know she has played the coquette with him, but he did not even pay her any attention. Hang it all, he has other things to do.... Who told you this?”

  “No one. I have just come from the Boulevard Pereire and I overheard them. I went by the peanut way and found myself alone in the boudoir, and I heard them talking in the bedroom. They are still there. Go and see for yourself.”

  Lavobourg reeled. He could no longer entertain any doubt.

  “Look here, Lavobourg,” went on d’Askof, “my car is outside. You will find the octroi officer’s kepi and cape in the locker. The pass number tonight is seven peanuts. Make certain of the facts and come back. I’ll wait for you here.”

  “I’ll go,” said Lavobourg.

  “Well, take my great coat, turn up the collar, put on my hat, and slip into the car. The detective officers watching your door will mistake you for me....”

  D’Askof heard the street door close and the car drive off. Then he returned to the empty study. He observed that when disturbed the great politician had been engaged in carefully ensuring his own personal safety. In the fire-place papers, doubtless of a compromising nature, were almost completely consumed.

  Twenty minutes had scarcely elapsed when the door opened and Lavobourg came in seemingly no less perturbed than on his departure.

  “I tried to get through but failed. Did you not tell me that the pass number to-night was seven peanuts?”

  “Why, yes. I got through with that number.”

  “Well, when I put down seven the man behind the bar looked at me and, shaking his head, said: ‘You can’t go through.’ I tried to continue my way. He made a sign, and two customers at once left their stools. I did not persist, and here I am back again. Oh, I had an intense longing to enter the house openly. It couldn’t be helped. It would have aroused the other’s suspicions, and I shouldn’t have found him there. Besides, the house was being watched by the police.”

  “Oh!” said d’Askof, whistling. “Oh, how clever they are! How clever they are. They must have suspected that there was something out of the way in my hurried departure and changed the pass number.”

  “But who are they?” demanded Lavobourg excitedly. “Can you tell me, when all is said and done, for whom you and I are working? Can you tell me who is behind Jacques de Touchais? For, after all, seeing that you loathe him, a fact that I realized before to-day, there must be something which impels you to act. Whose tool are you? And whose puppet have I been up to to-day?”

  At Lavobourg’s appeal d’Askof rose and began to pace up and down like a wild animal preparing to make a spring and shatter the bars of his cage, but gradually his excitement lessened and he returned to his seat, the tension relaxed, almost calm.

  “It’s no use,” he said in a strained voice, “I can’t tell you.”

  “The party for whom we are working must indeed be powerful. Is it a political party — a financial party — a religious party?”

  D’Askof shook his head.

  “You are nowhere near it,” he said. “It’s something much more extraordinary than that. Besides, don’t ask me. I can’t tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I value my skin. Listen, Lavobourg, there is but one point on which we can understand each other — it’s about him — the Major. After all, it’s entirely a question of that man. We both hate him.”

  “Oh, I hate him! I’d like to kill him.
I shall challenge him. We will fight him.”

  “And he’ll kill you. That won’t improve matters. No, we can do better than that. And besides, I have done what I could by coming here to see you, by telling you how matters stand, and by enabling you to give vent to your feelings. It’s for you to act now. You can ruin his adventure. You know that it is fixed for Monday. You can have him arrested between now and then. And when they have laid hands on him they will discover, in part, the secret.”

  “The assassination of Carlier!”

  “Don’t try to make me say what I must not say.”

  “Then what do you expect me to do — go and see the President of the Council?”

  “What would you say to him? That Jacques is making his move on Monday? But what more? We still know nothing about it, you and I. He is the only man who knows — he and possibly Sonia. But I know he is relying on you. You are in the forefront of the scheme and will be informed at the last moment. Doubtless he will tell you to-morrow the part you are to play. Well, wait patiently until then....”

  Lavobourg stared at d’Askof.

  “When you entered the boudoir were they in Sonia’s room?”

  “I have told you so.”

  “How long did you remain in the boudoir?”

  “Over half an hour. Why, but, my dear fellow, what more do you want me to tell you? It was the sound of their kisses that warned me....” Lavobourg uttered a dull moan and swept his hand across his fevered brow.

  “All right.... All right, you may count on me,” he said.

  “Then good-bye for the present.”

  “Shall I see you this afternoon.”

  “Yes, I suppose, in the house in the Boulevard Pereire, and if you don’t see me to-day we shall certainly meet on Sunday where we have been invited to dine.”

  “I may know everything then. I shall have, perhaps, to make some sign to you....”

  “Well, my dear fellow, whatever you do, don’t do that. You will have to act on your own. No one suspects you. I cannot move a step without having X’s secret police on my heels. They saw me come to your place to-night. That doesn’t matter, for it has happened several times, and they think that you are in all sincerity in the scheme. But if I were to try any startling or ambiguous move — set foot in Flottard’s place, for instance — I should be dead before I crossed the threshold of his office. Oh, they are not trying to catch me unawares, they have warned me.”

  “But after all, forgive me for persisting now that we have joined forces — who are they? Who is the mysterious X?”

  “My dear fellow, were I to tell you I fear that the very walls of this house would come crashing down and bury the both of us.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  MONSIEUR HILAIRE

  “MONSIEUR HILAIRE, I beg of you to be good enough to drop your politics for the moment and attend to business. I’m sorry, gentlemen, to interrupt such an interesting conversation, but — don’t you think so? — there are the interests of the ‘Up-to-date Grocery Stores’ to be considered as well as the interests of the Republic.”

  Thus in pompous and carefully chosen language Mme Virginie Zenaide Félicité Hilaire expressed herself, addressing first her husband and next his friends, three of the principal members of the Arsenal Club, a political club well known for its advanced views and influence in municipal matters, which had elected M. Hilaire as its secretary.

  It was not, however, that M. Hilaire felt any very pronounced taste for the fleeting glories of public life, but the Mme Hilaire had sufficient ambition for both of them, and dreamed of being the wife of a municipal councillor. As usual, he gave way to her, for he had a holy terror of her. Mme Hilaire had a will of her own.

  She sat enthroned in the cash desk — the word enthroned is no exaggeration to suggest a picture of this massive and masterful dame perched aloft in the centre of the imposing paraphernalia of the cash and order desk in Hilaire’s “Up-to-date Grocery Stores.”

  Virginie, the youthful maidservant at Le Pollet, had put on weight since she met the poor young man then called the Dodger. [See The Dancing Girl, by Gaston Leroux. Translated by Hannaford Bennett. (John Long Limited.)] — Hush, suppose the Dodger should hear! — and they both left their home in the Rue St. Roch...

  “One tin of peas, one tin of good quality peas, one tin of extra quality peas,” enumerated Mme Hilaire. “Oh, by the way, have we any of those Canadian apple rings?”...

  “In any case I can assure you that we shall know where we stand at Carlier and Bonchamp’s funeral. The funeral is on Tuesday. A state funeral,” cried one of the most important members of the Arsenal Club, helping himself to a handful of almonds from a bag yawning beside him.

  “M. Tholosée,” said Mme. Hilaire, “will you go with your friends to the little café at the corner, for I am worked off my head. I will send M. Hilaire when I’ve done with him. Come, M. Hilaire, I asked you if we have any Canadian apple rings.”

  “What we want is ‘wringed’ necks!” exclaimed the big gawky-looking Tholosée, dragging his friends out of the shop and hustling two worthy citizens who drew back to allow him to pass.

  “Come in, gentlemen. He’s a big fool, but not a bad chap. Well, how are you, M. Florent? And you, M. Barkimel? You look out of sorts.

  “Mme Hilaire, you receive people here who will do you harm,” ventured M. Barkimel.

  “In what way?” asked M. Hilaire, riding the high horse as the phrase goes. “They are Arsenal Club friends of mine. They merely desire the good of the people. The proof of that is they have elected me secretary.”

  “To save the Republic!” said Florent, shrugging his shoulders.

  “M. Hilaire is no bigger fool than other people,” said Mme Hilaire ruffled. “And he is not the man to be dazzled by the stripes of a twopenny-halfpenny soldier. You can tell Subdamoun that from me.”

  “You are going a little too far,” said M. Hilaire obviously embarrassed.

  “Hold your tongue.”

  “Virginie, everyone is entitled to his opinion: we have our own, but there is no object in our losing the Marchioness de Touchais’s custom.”

  “Let her keep her custom. Conceited thing!”

  “Virginie, I wish you wouldn’t...” exclaimed M. Hilaire. “You are forgetting...”

  “What am I forgetting? What am I forgetting?” she shouted, descending from the cash desk. “Ah, M. Hilaire, we’ll have this out once for all, and we’ll see if in future you will use words of double meaning astonishing your friends. Will you do me the favor of coming into the dining-room?”

  M. Hilaire did not wait to be asked a second time. The door was closed with a bang.

  “He’s going to get it hot,” babbled M. Florent in consternation.

  Mme Hilaire in the dark, damp dining-room let herself go with all the impetuosity of her revengeful temper.

  “What am I forgetting? That I was a servant girl at the Marchioness’s? Well, yes, I am forgetting it, because it doesn’t suit me to remember the time when though I was nobody you were merely an ass who submitted to every imposition.”

  “Virginie, I wish you wouldn’t... People will hear you. Don’t shout so much.”

  “I shall shout as much as I like. I never saw such a big booby with his ‘Marchioness de Touchais.’ How you like to mouth those words ‘Marchioness de Touchais!’ Oh, don’t pretend to be indifferent. All said, I know what you think. It’s all very well to pretend to be a democrat, but you would like nothing better than to return and black the boots of the Marchioness and her son Jacques — aping Bonaparte. It’s enough to make one die of laughing. Be quiet! You’ve always had the soul of a flunkey.”

  “Virginie...”

  Just then a knock came at the door.

  “Some one wishes to speak to M. Hilaire.” Virginie went over and looked through the pane of glass, pushing aside the curtain an inch or so.

  “There!” she said. “Here is the good sister, the Marchioness’s companion, as it happens. I will see her — don
’t disturb yourself.”

  She went back to the shop, stood before Jacqueline, and said:

  “What do you want, madame?”

  Jacqueline seemed somewhat embarrassed at not seeing M. Hilaire.

  “Well, I wanted some soap....”

  “Scented soap? What sort? We have...”

  “Oh, just some soap for the washing.”

  “Very well, madame, but I could not guess that, could I? Boy, attend to madame.” And she mounted the steps of her throne.

  When she was served, Jacqueline took her courage in both hands, for this stout lady, who looked at her from the height of her desk in such majestic fashion, rather frightened her, and she ventured to ask: “Is not M. Hilaire in?”

  “Yes, madame, he is in, but I must tell you he is very busy.”

  “I have a word to say to him.”

  “But, madame, I will pass it on.”

  “It’s from the Marchioness de Touchais.”

  “It doesn’t matter whom it comes from, I am Mme Hilaire. I must ask you to tell me what it is you have to say to my husband.”

  Just then the dining-room door was opened and M. Hilaire was heard to say in a firm voice:

  “Will you please come into the dining-room, Mademoiselle Jacqueline?”

  Jacqueline, startled, but glad of the unexpected intervention, hastened to take advantage of the invitation and escape the terrible Mme Hilaire. And the door closed behind her who formerly was Sister St. Mary of the Angels, and on him who formerly was the Dodger.

  Mme Hilaire in the cash desk gasped for breath. Swallowing her confusion she began to add up long rows of figures, endeavouring to recover her composure. M. Florent and M. Barkimel had ordered a glass of port at the bar at the other end of the shop and turned their heads away so that she might think that they had not observed the incident....

  Let us return to the dining-room into which M. Hilaire had invited Mlle Jacqueline to step with an authority and resolution that surprised and, let us add, dismayed him, for he could not help thinking of the consequences of his sudden impulse.