Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  “First of all, keep your revolver in your pocket.”

  “Well? And then?”

  “Then, when dinner is finished, go back with the other passengers and leave me alone with Balaoo.”

  “That, never! Have you forgotten what Zoé said?”

  “Balaoo was mad this morning; he is perfectly quiet now.”

  “Why did he follow us here? Do you think it’s with a good intention? Zoé was perfectly right. We must be on our guard!”

  “I am not taking my eyes off him and the poor fellow daren’t even look up at us...He does not know what to do: he is hiding his face behind the bill of fare, putting it down, taking it up again. Now he’s pretending to give an order to the waiter. Now he’s moving the bottles on the table. It’s pitiful...Listen, Patrice dear, you must leave me alone with him for a moment and I’ll scold him. He will get down at the first station, I promise you.”

  “You can do as you please, but I sha’n’t leave you.”

  “Oh!” exclaimed Madeleine, anxious but dignified.

  “He’s getting up, he’s going, he’ll escape us...You can see he’s afraid. Let’s go after him. I must speak to him, at all costs, I must know what he wants!”

  “Yes,” repeated Patrice, “we must know...know what he wants...We can’t continue this journey with that thing about us.”

  They stood up. Patrice tried to pass in front of Madeleine, but she pushed him behind her with some violence and they hastened through the two compartments of the dining-car with the staggering gait of tipsy people quarrelling. They were the object of general curiosity and of some laughter. Balaoo, who was on the foot-board joining the dining-car to the next coach, turned round angrily, thinking that the people were laughing at him.

  Patrice was almost blinded by those fierce and flashing eyes...and he shuddered to the marrow of his bones. He had recognized the eyes of the monster in the black mask who had nearly strangled him on the top of the diligence, by the Wolf Stone.

  Madeleine hurried after Balaoo, who had now reached the corridor. Patrice, behind her, cocked his revolver; and the three ran one after the other, in Indian file. Madeleine called, in a faint voice:

  “Balaoo!...Balaoo!...”

  The other must have heard, but no longer turned his head, seemed wholly taken up with his flight along the corridor. He slipped like a shadow throllgh the astonished passengers, who, with staring eyes, watched a pursuit that looked to them like a game.

  “Balaoo!” said Madeleine, in a voice of command.

  But her voice in vain adopted a tone of authority, like that of a lion-tamer preparing to lash his animals: the other no longer obeyed. Then, as he was gaining ground, Madeleine’s voice became gentle and beseeching and she uttered the “Balaoo!” that had always brought him back, moaning, to her feet, at the worst and most rebellious hours of his savage brain. But Balaoo seemed not even to hear and rushed into the corridor of the third carriage. When they arrived there, he was gone; and they ransacked the whole train to no purpose, in a galloping anxiety. Balaoo had disappeared! And this seemed to them even more terrifying than to have him in front of them in the restaurant-car, stealthily dining at a little table, deceitfully mimicking the actions of one of the Race ordering his dinner, while, underneath the table, the sinewy thighs of one from the Forest of Bandong were preparing for a murderous leap!

  Patrice and Madeleine retreated half-dead to their compartment, locking and bolting it, though that made but a poor defence against an enterprising Balaoo. Since her voice was powerless, even when raised in entreaty, they were at the monster’s mercy. What was going to befall them, with that hateful thought of the pithecanthrope around them? They realized that everyone of their movements was spied upon, from some place, which they could not discover, where the anthropoid’s malice had found a refuge. And it was only now that Zoé’s voice, proclaiming all Balaoo’s crimes, reached Madeleine’s ears with its full, dreadful force:

  “He will kill you as he killed Blondel...as he killed Camus...as he killed Lombard...and another whom you know of!”

  Ah, yes; yes, yes, she knew!...She had seen him at work!...She had seen his terrible hand at work!...She was forewarned, she knew what he was capable of and, if he killed yet another — another who was sitting beside her, fingering the revolver in his pocket with a trembling hand — she could say to herself, with absolute certainty, that that fine piece of business, the business of educating a pithecanthrope, was hers!...Oh, the anarchists need not think that reversible bombs alone are delicate and dangerous to handle; there are other receptacles; such as brain-pans, which, when manipulated a little too roughly by old professors or a little too heedlessly by young ladies, also have a way of going off at a moment when you think them quite safe, brain-pans of pithecanthropes and the like, which reverse of their own accord upon the shoulders of thoughtless young persons!...

  Patrice and Madeleine cast haggard eyes above, below and around them. Where was he? It was frightful not to know where he was; for they could feel his eyes!

  The train was travelling at a speed which would have frightened them, if they could have felt frightened, at that moment, of anything but the eyes that watched them...Unconsciously, instinctively, they sat closer together...They embraced each other with timid arms, shuddering under the eyes that were slowly killing them...The train rushed through station after station with a whistle that rent the black veils of the night like silk. Sometimes, the train made a noise like thunder: that was when it was passing through a tunnel. And here again came the noise of the thunder, at the moment when they were most afraid. Then...then...they saw the eyes watching them behind the glass, the glass of the carriage-window, which was pitch dark in the tunnel and formed a black frame for the terrible head of Balaoo watching them!

  Patrice made the movement that would set them free. His hand darted forward like a spring, his hand armed with the revolver, and Madeleine uttered one last cry of pity and compassion:

  “Don’t shoot!”

  And Patrice aimed between the two eyes and fired.

  The train made such a noise of thunder in that tunnel that they alone heard the shot that was meant to kill Balaoo. No one, therefore, would come to disturb them in their murder of a poor pithecanthrope who had strayed from the Forest of Bandong. But had they murdered him as much as all that? Did not Madeleine say that you can’t kill a pithecanthrope with a revolver? Madeleine looked out with every sign of despair. She made a rush at the window, tried to open the door, at the risk of being dashed to pieces in the tunnel. Patrice had to exert all his strength to hold her back. And now, panting, they watched the drama enacted behind the pane.

  The bullet had made a very clean’ little hole in the window-pane and another little hole, not so clean, because of the blood, at the root of Balaoo’s nose, behind the window, to which he was clinging desperately. Balaoo gazed at Madeleine with, his fast-closing eyes; and never had Madeleine seen a more human look, at the moment of death, even in the eyes of the tamest animals, even in the eyes of sporting-dogs when they die in the arms of their masters who have shot them through awkwardness...And Balaoo let go the carriage-window and disappeared in the black rumbling hole.

  “Balaoo! Balaoo! Balaoo!” cried the despairing Madeleine, imprisoned in Patrice’ arms. “Balaoo! Balaoo!”

  Poor Balaoo must be in a thousand pieces by now. There is nothing like a train in a tunnel to kill a pithecanthrope.

  Madeleine was stifling. But Patrice began to breathe. Alas, how often do we not find, at the moment when we think ourselves safe, at last, from the pursuit of fate, that it turns against us with the most deadly cruelty! Even so with Patrice Saint-Aubin. Seeing his dear little Madeleine for the third time nearly expiring on that wretched wedding-day, he resolved to shorten this first part of the journey. They left the train at Moulins and drove to the old Hôtel de la Gare.

  Here, Patrice engaged a suite of rooms of which he had not time to appreciate the full comfort, for, when he went downstairs to
give some orders to the proprietor, he heard an appalling cry from Madeleine’s lips:

  “Help!”

  All the terror that a cry can express was contained in that one cry. The hotel-keeper and Patrice felt their hair stand up on end. They flew to the unhappy girl’s room. She was no longer there; but the window was wide open on the night.

  Madeleine must have made a supreme effort to defend herself. The marks of her bloodstained fingers were found on the sheets torn from the bed. And a trail of blood led from the bed to the window.

  Chapter XXI

  WE SHALL NOW see the memorable circumstances in which the private misfortunes of the Saint-Aubin family assumed the proportions of a public calamity.

  Let me first quote two paragraphs which appeared in the Patrie en danger and the Observateur impartial respectively and which passed unnoticed at the time. It was not until later that people thought of connecting them with the extraordinary incidents that upset the whole existence of the capital. The Patrie en danger wrote, in its “Paris Notes:”

  “The impudence of foreigners knows no bounds. They treat Paris like a conquered city. This is a fact which we have all observed for ourselves. They expect the best seats at the theatres; and the tables outside the cafes are theirs as though by right. Yesterday evening, two Roumanian students stopped in front of the Brasserie Amédée in the Rue des Écoles and, finding a little dog in their way as they were going to sit down, calmly fired a revolver at it (*) and killed it. They were pursued by the indignant crowd and only just had time to climb a gutter pipe of the Musée de Cluny and thus escape the punishment that awaited them. M. Haracourt, the genial keeper of our national museum, in vain interrupted his work to look for the offenders, who were able to make good their flight by means of a gargoyle from which any respectable man would, nine times out of ten, have fallen and broken his neck.”(*)

  On the same day, the Observateur impartial contained the following, under the heading:

  NOT EVERYBODY CARES FOR PEA-NUTS

  (*) In spite of all the care which the press, as a rule, takes to tell the precise truth, it is liable, like all of us, to be mistaken; nor is anyone exactly to be blamed for this. It is an inevitable result of the tendency to “pad” the news received. — AUTHOR’S NOTE.

  (*) I am not quite sure that it is necessary to point out to the English reader that, in this and the following “cuttings,” M. Leroux deliberately (and very skilfully) reproduces the stilted journalese of the news-columns in the Paris papers. — TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.

  “If the long-suffering ratepayers who constitute the Paris public would occasionally take the law into their own hands when tired of the multitudinous annoyances thrust upon them, life in our much overrated metropolis would perhaps become endurable. A few years ago, a man could still sit outside a cafe without being pestered by peripatetic street-vendors, hawkers of every kind, newspaper-boys and dealers in picture-postcards and transparencies; he could take his cocktail without having his table invaded by the latest thing in toys or by a keg of olives. Things, unfortunately, have changed; and we can well understand that people suddenly lose their tempers in the face of the obstinacy of a pea-nut vendor whose wares they have already respectfully refused. Yesterday evening, at the Cafe Sara Bernhardt, two young attaches of the Japanese Legation, weary of a torment to which they had doubtless never been subjected in the streets of Nagasaki, sent a too-enterprising dealer in pea-nuts flying into the gutter. The incident occurred during the interval between the acts and caused some little commotion; and the representatives of the prefect of police were preparing to draw up a report, when the young Japanese were clever enough to vanish with the agility of monkeys, clinging to a passing tram-car and scrambling to the top by sheer force of muscle, without using the steps, no doubt so as to show the passengers on the Montrouge-Gare de l’Est tram that people are pretty resourceful in the Empire of the Rising Sun.”

  On the following Sunday, this paragraph appeared among the society-paragraphs in the Gaulois des dimanches:

  “H. H. the Maharajah of Kalpurthagra, who has come to France to study our habits and customs and the advantages of wireless telegraphy, sups every night at Maxim’s. His Highness has brought with him, from his own country, a recipe for raw rice in champagne which is highly appreciated by the customers of an establishment where it is still the fashion for a very ‘Parisian’ set to seek relaxation from the labours of the day. Henry, the popular manager, recommends that this exotic, but succulent dish should be prepared exclusively with the minimum brut of the well-known Singsong brand.”

  My next quotation is from a very curious report that appeared in the theatrical columns of the Bigarro on the day after the wedding of Mlle. Arlette des Barrieres, the celebrated musical-comedy-actress, and M. Massepain, the tenor:

  “Contrary to the custom which has lately been introduced and which entails the disappearance of the husband and wife immediately after the light lunch that follows upon the marriage-ceremony, the newly-married couple had resolved to spend their wedding-day among their friends. These are many in number; and the large banqueting-room of the Restaurant de Mailly was called into requisition to hold them all, or nearly all. For every theatre and every branch of artistic talent was represented around the charming Arlette, who looked perfectly exquisite in white and orange-blossoms. The breakfast promised to be one of the most successful on record and a general gaiety was arising round the tables spread with a Gargantuan banquet, when a most grotesque and deplorable incident came and spoilt everything.

  “A practical joker — if that be the word, for I really do not know how to describe the dismal wag — whom no one was able to recognize under his perfect make up as ‘Prince Charles’ of the Folies-Bergere, eye-glass and all, appeared at the entrance to the reception-rooms and asked to speak to the bride. His manner was so peculiar and his excited demeanour seemed so threatening that the servants left him in the hall and went to inform M. Massepain, who, at once, in great astonishment, quitted his seat in search of further particulars.

  “The popular tenor found himself confronted with a visitor who refused to give his name and who, without for a second ceasing to swing, sway and waddle from side to side, after the manner of ‘Prince Charles,’ the famous chimpanzee aforesaid, declared that he would not go until he had spoken a word to the bride. He added, to the intense amusement of all who heard him, rudely sniffing the air as he spoke:

  “‘Oh, I know she’s here! It smells of orange blossoms!’

  “M. Massepain, impatient of a sort of jest that threatened to be prolonged indefinitely, tried to take his visitor by the arm, but was flung back with such violence as to draw cries of indignation from the guests who had gathered round him. Some of them wished to interfere and give the clown a good hiding; but M. Massepain pushed them aside and, going up to the man, who was slouching round and round the hall like a bear in its cage, said:

  “‘Sir, I don’t know you.’

  “‘Nor I you,’ said the other, ‘but I know that the bride is here and I will not go away without speaking to her.’

  “‘Sir,’ retorted M. Massepain, quite calmly, ‘my patience is nearly exhausted.’

  “The other replied, with unparalleled insolence, ceasing his sort of dance:

  “‘A man without patience is a lamp without oil!’

  “‘Sir,’ cried M. Massepain, angrily, ‘this farce has lasted long enough. Go away! You only excite our pity.’

  “And the other, who seemed to grow cooler as M. Massepain became more heated, replied:

  “‘Pity is the finest and noblest passion of mankind!’

  “‘That’s enough of it! He’s getting at us! Turn him out!’ shouted the guests, while the bride was surrounded by friends who prevented her from going to see what was happening and who were determined to protect her from that madman. ‘What does he want? Who is he? Why doesn’t he give his name, at least? He has no courage!’

  “‘Courage,’ rejoined the irritating visitor, sc
rewing his glass into his eye, courage is the light of adversity!’

  “The guests did not know what to do under this rain of apophthegms; and the visitor held his ground. The waiters were sent for and tried to force him down the stairs. He pushed them back with an incredible display of strength and cried, in a voice of thunder that was heard all over the establishment, from top to bottom:

  “‘I will go when I have spoken to the bride. You need only say a word to her, just one word, and she will see me at once.’

  “The scandal was attaining such proportions that M. Massepain, to put an end to it, asked the visitor:

  “‘What word do you want said to her?’

  “‘Say, “Bilbao.”’

  “‘Bilbao?’

  “‘Yes, Bilbao, she will understand. Go on.’

  “‘Bilbao!’ repeated the guests, laughing and humming,baloo! ‘You bet, he’ll grow, for he’s a Spanish lad!’(*)

  (*) “Il grandira, car il est espagnol:” the well-known duet in La Périchole (1868). — TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

  No sooner did the horrible fellow perceive that they were making fun of Bilbao — native place, no doubt — than he went quite mad. Pushing and overturning all who tried to oppose his progress, he entered the banqueting-room. The bride had taken refuge in a private room, but it was a useless precaution, for the intruder guessed where she was and, while the others ran to the windows on the Boulevard Saint-Germain and shouted for help, he made his way, upsetting the tables and chairs and smashing the glass and crockery, to the door between himself and ‘Our Own Arlette’ and broke the hinges with a tremendous kick. When he saw the bride fainting in the arms of her bridesmaids, he seemed quite astonished. He at once begged her pardon and said, aloud:

  “‘I must have made a mistake!’

  “Then he returned, with calm steps and knit brows, to the banqueting-room, where, as is easily understood, disorder and uproar reigned. Some policemen, who had hurried up the stairs, tried to take him by the collar; but he gave one bound to the window and jumped into a tree. An enormous crowd, attracted by the clamour that came from the restaurant, was standing on the boulevard. Loud shouts greeted the appearance and flight of the man, who sprang from branch to branch and tree to tree with a supernatural velocity which enabled him soon to escape the policemen in pursuit.