He again fixed me with a peculiar look, rose to his feet, and bending over my ear said in a whisper:
“Isn’t Captain Hyx...?”
And he mentioned under his breath the name of the greatest living philanthropist.
I gave a start, and replied evasively that since Captain Hyx always wore a mask, I could not say anything positively, but “all the same, it was very likely.”
He turned as pale as death.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” he said.
“You have every reason to be afraid,” I returned, “because he maintains that it was you, Admiral, who ordered the torture of this great philanthropist’s wife, and he has sworn to avenge her and also Miss Campbell.”
The Admiral turned paler still if that were possible.
“Ya, Ya,” he puffed — it was the puff of a seal—” he — the great philanthropist — was heard to vow most tremendous vengeance when he learnt of that affair.” And ceasing to puff like a seal Von Treischke went on: “Speak out... Tell me everything you know from the beginning to the end.”
He listened to me without interruption. I related in detail the circumstances of my adventure. I was certain that I was not betraying anyone this time. On the contrary, I was doing Captain Hyx some service inasmuch as I made him feared by his enemies. Nevertheless, impelled by some secret instinct, I passed over in silence my adventure in the Cies islands and I made no reference to Mark six metres eighty-five. Need I say that at the end of the story there was one thing which I declined to reveal and which provoked a fresh outburst of fury from the Admiral? I was steadfast in my refusal to indicate the spot at which the auto-hydro-aeroplane, in which I escaped from the “Vengeance,” had alighted.
“It would be a very poor compensation” I urged “for those who saved me by betraying Captain Hyx, and brought me to you, don’t forget.”
“It’s not a question of compensating anybody,” he returned, “but of capturing pirates. Do you want to be hanged with them?”
Having said which he did not wait for my reply but left me standing there declaring that “we will do that to-morrow.”
I heard the sound of his footsteps cross the passages and corridors, and I heard the street door being opened and closed after him.
CHAPTER II
AN ANXIOUS NIGHT
WHEN I NO longer heard any sound in the street I quietly opened the door of the room and saw before me my dear old mother and Gertrude, who were ghastly pale.
“What’s happened? What did he say? He was looking extremely fierce when he left the house and very preoccupied. What have we to fear, my dear son?”
“Well,” I replied to my mother, clasping her in my arms, “I told him everything conscientiously. The future is in the hands of Heaven. But I must tell you, mother, that I don’t think that we’re at the end of our troubles.”
“You don’t mean that. Didn’t you assert your innocence? Didn’t he read it in your face?”
“Certainly, he at once believed it. He told me so quite frankly. He thinks I am too dumm to be guilty. But what’s the use? I am mixed up, you see, in an adventure from which I shall never be able to get clear. On whatever side I turn, I see nothing for myself but grief and blood and tears.”
“Blood and tears.... But what have you been doing, unhappy boy?”
I was about to plunge for the second time into the recital of my misfortunes when Gertrude returned from the kitchen with the leek and potato soup which she had warmed up again. Well, I made a dash for it, and in spite of everything I ate two large plates full, sitting between my mother and the maid, who both stared at me in silence as they wiped their eyes. I afterwards disposed of a large glass of wine, from our hill-side, whose flavour and exhilarating warmth ended by putting new life into me, and I did not allow the two women to remain in suspense any longer. At two o’clock in the morning they were still listening to me, seated on the other side of the table, prostrated with terror, their hands joined, appealing to Providence and the Blessed Virgin as I unfolded my tale.
Every now and then I rose to my feet and opened the door of the dining-room, for I seemed to hear peculiar noises like the gliding of muffled footsteps over the passage carpet. I did not observe anything, and the two women asked me not to trouble about it, because during the last few weeks they had been accustomed to be spied upon, and to the eavesdropping of the servants whom Von Treischke had forced upon them. “Apart from that,” my mother said, “we have nothing to complain of. They behave themselves decently as long as we stuff them with food and drink until they are almost ready to burst. They are welcome to listen to us. We have nothing to hide from them, nor have you, my Carolus.”
Whatever may have been the cause, I was not easy in my mind, and as at one moment I thought I heard a veritable groan, I made a move towards the kitchen where, Gertrude informed me, she had left the two men fast asleep. My mother and the maid insisted on coming with me.
We no sooner opened the kitchen door than they both cried out. The two soldiers — I recognised from their uniform that they were artillery-men — were lying on the floor gagged and bound. We released them from their bonds, but it was impossible to obtain the least information from them. They seemed quite besotted with overeating and drinking, and perhaps to some extent with fright. Nevertheless since it could not have been a trick played by themselves for their own satisfaction we were bound to assume that they were the victims of some mysterious aggression.
We had heard nothing, or so very little, that we could not understand what had happened. The women were trembling from head to foot. My own fears were hardly less acute. I had, of course, abundant reasons for dreading that the worse might happen. My mind at once reverted to the enterprise which had been undertaken by Lieutenant Smith, the Irishman, and the men whom he brought with him in the auto-hydro-aeroplane. Had they learnt that the Admiral was at Renich at that moment, and indeed actually in the house?
It was easy to understand the attack considered from that point of view. Thus I was constrained to believe that they had arrived here — God alone knows how — with the object of seizing Admiral von Treischke; and when they discovered he was not here, they must have gone away after, at the outset, reducing our two soldiers to helplessness.
This reading of the incident, although it made me fear the consequences to Admiral von Treischke, and the still more atrocious results which I had done my utmost to prevent, had at least the advantage of partly setting my mind at rest as far as my own position was concerned; for after all another version was possible — the men from the “Vengeance” had come in search of me.
Bearing in mind the speed at which the auto-hydroaeroplane could travel, it was quite feasible that after the failure of the plot at Zeebrugge the Irishman had returned to the submarine to make his report to Captain Hyx; and the latter, on learning of my flight, had sent his men again after me; particularly as he might consider that I was responsible for the Irishman’s failure. If my supposition were correct, his rage would know no bounds, for I had thwarted him in an affair which he had very much at heart, and for which he had left everything when the tremendous Invisible Battle was being waged with great slaughter on both sides near Mark six metres eighty-five, somewhere round the Cies island.
Be that as it may, it was with an indescribable pang at my heart that, taking up a lantern, I determined to probe the mystery of those shadows in the house; those strange shadows whom we heard gliding over the passage carpet with muffled steps, playing the eavesdropper. The women implored me to lock myself with them and the two drunken soldiers in the kitchen and to wait until daybreak. But I determined to get to the bottom of things. I wanted then and there, whatever happened, to have done with the fear that was creeping over me, and above all I wanted at whatever cost to myself to be free from it during the ensuing days.
Had these shadows come to carry off Admiral von Treischke or me?
I wanted to speak to them. We might succeed in coming to some understanding! I car
ried no firearms and I had no thought of fighting them, but rather to persuade them to leave me in peace in future. I would swear never to interfere with their business, and entreat them to take into consideration that, after all, they ought not to forget that I was a neutral.
All the same, as my right hand was free — my left hand carried the lantern — I caught hold of a heavy, fiat, iron bar which served to strengthen the inside of the shutters, and I made use of it as a walking-stick during this nocturnal promenade through the windings of our old house. The women refused to leave me and both followed me, with candles which flickered in their trembling hands and were extinguished by the least draught.
Never had the steps of the worm-eaten old staircase trembled and creaked more sadly or more mysteriously with their wooden voices than on that evening. It was as if the steps cried out even before we placed our feet upon them, in spite of all our entreaties, addressed to them from the bottom of our hearts, to be silent during our progress; and when we passed them they seemed still to have something to say to us. At every sound the procession paused, and I heard my mother and Gertrude’s heavy breathing.
“They came this way,” exclaimed Gertrude with chattering teeth. And she pointed to a small, narrow staircase which ran up to a loft. On the first step was a rectangular, zinc dust-bin. She stared at the bin with an air of stupefaction.
“What’s the matter, Gertrude?”
“I never put the bin like that. I always put it crosswise, and now it’s lengthwise. It must have blocked their way...”
Gertrude was right. When I bent down to examine the stairs I distinctly saw traces of footsteps. They were fairly numerous and clear owing to the snow which these men had brought in on their boots.
“Has it been snowing?” I enquired.
“Well, it snowed yesterday morning.”
“I didn’t see any snow in the streets.”
“It thawed.... But there’s still a little on the roofs.”
“On the roofs!”
“Where are you going, Carolus, where are you going?”
I went boldly up to the loft. I lifted the trap-door, and put my hand through, throwing forward the light of the lantern. It was bitterly cold and I felt the breath of an icy wind from a dormer window that was wide open. I leapt into the loft.
I had no difficulty in satisfying myself that the footprints whose traces we discovered on the narrow staircase were repeated on the floor and led to and from the window, or rather came from the window and returned to the window — such at least was my opinion.
When I reached the window I could not help having a look outside, for curiosity is stronger than any other instinct, and is rarely satisfied. I did not regret it, for as I leant out of the window I caught a glimpse of a shadow which was moving in a somewhat peculiar manner in the adjoining garden. It was only through this dormer window that we were able to overlook the garden.
I may say that I had not seen the garden, which was enclosed by high walls and a massive and substantial gateway, since the time when, as a little good-for-nothing, I used to enjoy myself by running about our house with my schoolfellows, whom I brought home after school hours, for a game of hide-and-seek in the hemp which at that time was stored in the loft. The game, of course, was continued on the roofs without the knowledge of our parents, for if they had suspected these pranks they would have predicted all sorts of disasters, and we should probably have been thrashed into the bargain. I mention this fact so as to indicate that even at that period the immense garden, so completely cut off from the world, as it were, greatly interested me.
In the middle of the garden was a large detached house the windows of which even to the second floor were protected by iron bars. There was only one door to the building, and I had never seen it opened but by an old gardener who used to close it again with a great rattle of locks and bolts that gave me the shivers. Usually a bulldog prowled about the garden, and his bulging eyes and ferocious jaws were hideous to see, while the creature never failed to set up a howl, like a mad dog, when he appeared on the roof. Often we saw behind the bars of one of the windows the gloomy figure of an old lady who wept and laughed and sang in turns.
The place was called “the madhouse.” It appears it was built some fifty years before by a gentleman in the town who married a young girl, beautiful as the day, but who went mad after her wedding because, it is said, she was not in love with the gentleman in the town but with a young man in the country.
The mad girl grew old in this prison. And first the man died, and then the madwoman died, and last of all the gardener died. Of course the dog also died. And the ill-fated property itself seemed to be dead. No one was ever seen to enter and no one was ever seen to come out of it. Little children ran past the mouldy, moss-grown walls, eaten up with ivy and every sort of parasitical plant; for “the madhouse,” even without its mad inmate, continued to produce a terrifying impression.
On one occasion — I was then grown up and was beginning to pay my court to Amalia — I went up into the loft and looked out of the window on to the garden. It was a veritable jungle. No sign of a path could be seen. The trees and grass had been allowed to run riot at their own sweet will, and the place was an inextricable tangle of branches and undergrowth. In the midst of this wilderness, the house, with its shutters depending from walls which held together somehow, assumed a more and more woe-begone aspect. Its desolation seemed to render it still more ominous; and I must confess that I never heard a bird singing in the garden. Such was the condition of the property, still deserted, still shunned by little boys, when I set out for my tour of the world.
And now, suddenly, I could see from my roof someone moving about in it.
The blank outline crept along and vanished from view among the tangle of the trees and branches which twisted and trembled in the icy wintry blast. And then it reappeared on the very doorstep of the old disused house.
The night was somewhat overcast, and I could not distinguish whether the intruder was a man or a woman. Three heavy, very heavy, blows were struck on the door, and I decided that the visitor must be a man. Nothing moved inside the house. Now the individual struck a heavier, indeed a tremendous blow. Almost immediately a light flickered on the first floor. A couple of minutes later the light descended to the ground floor, and I heard voices raised in parley at the door.
The door was opened. It was a woman who opened it and a man who knocked at it. The woman was old, and to all appearances a servant. As the man moved into the light before the door was closed, I recognised him. It was Admiral von Treischke.
At that moment I heard the voice of Gertrude calling me. She clambered up the staircase, and begged me in a low voice to come down as my mother was ready to die with fright. I treated her with scant courtesy, and closed the trap-door after telling her that there was now no cause for alarm, but that I must be left to examine the immediate precincts.
I returned to my observatory. A light gleamed in one of the windows of the ground floor. The window was cut in halves by a small rod from which hung curtains that were drawn. But from the spot where I was standing my eyes could see, above the curtain rod, everything that passed in the room.
The room was plainly but comfortably furnished. Von Treischke was seated at a table, upon which was a lamp.
He was alone, perfectly motionless. He seemed to be lost in thought. A door opened and a woman entered. I could not very well discern her features, but the outline of her figure, in its dark dressing-gown, seemed to me to be instinct with youth and grace.
Von Treischke rose to his feet and bowed to her; but the two did not shake hands. Von Treischke made a sign, and the young lady took an armchair, facing him, on the other side of the table. She turned her chair away from the light, so that I saw her in profile, or rather in quarter face; that is to say, too indistinctly and from too great a distance to be able to say with certainty whether I recognised the face. Nevertheless from the outset I had the impression that I had seen her before, and I
could not suppress a gesture of surprise. The next moment I was racking my brains, endeavouring to remember where and in what circumstances I had seen that quarter face.
Von Treischke talked for a considerable time, and what he said must have been of great interest, for the young lady did not once interrupt him, and I quite clearly saw her give vent to astonishment, and sometimes even to stupefaction. At last he ceased, and it was the lady’s turn to speak. She at once rose to her feet, and although I could no longer see her face, I could see her energetic gestures. She seemed to be protesting against something; probably against something which the Admiral had said. She did so with an air of supreme and almost majestic disdain. She had a very beautiful and dignified and well-proportioned figure which reminded me of Amalia’s although it was more slender. Each had its own particular charm.
And I continued to ask myself: “Where have I seen her? Where have I seen her?”
A few more words were exchanged between them, and then they bowed distantly with the minimum of politeness, and almost as though they were enemies. And the lady went away, while Von Treischke sank back again in his chair and buried his fierce square head in his hands.
He did not look up until he heard the noise which the old servant must have made as she returned to the room. He threw a few words at her as if she were a dog, and both disappeared. I saw them again at the door. He left her on the threshold.
The Admiral’s face was entirely covered with a comforter, and his uniform was hidden under a huge cloak.
The whole thing seemed to me very mysterious.
CHAPTER III
THE VEILED LADY
MY MOTHER AND Gertrude were standing at the bottom of the staircase. Gertrude had had the work of the world to persuade her mistress to remain downstairs. They were arguing at great length but cautiously, in low tones. We returned to the kitchen, where I hoped to find our two soldiers sobered by their adventure and able to give us some sort of explanation of what had occurred. But in front of them were jugs which they had newly filled from the cellar, and all that I could get out of them was unintelligible garrulity.
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 360
