Collected Works of Gaston Leroux
Page 496
‘One hour, two hours passed like that.... The library is directly over the kitchen.... The thing that surprised me most was that I didn’t even hear them take a step... they didn’t make the slightest sound; that puzzled me most, and I admit I was curious. Monsieur Latouche had never spoken to me of such visits.... So now, I too went upstairs and I put my ear to the library door... I couldn’t hear a sound.... So I knocked... nobody answered... I opened the door.... There wasn’t a soul inside.... As there is only one door, except the one I came in by, the door of the little writing-room, which leads into the library, I went to this door, but I was more surprised than ever... for never, never had I dared to go into Monsieur Latouche’s little private den. And my master never received any one there; it was almost a mania with him. He wanted that room just to write in and to be sure he would not be disturbed when he was in it. Often he would give way to me about something if I would ask him reasonably, but never about that place. He had a special key made and so I had never set foot in it before. He took care of it himself. He used to say to me: “All the rest of the apartment is yours, Babette, to polish and scrub as you will; that little corner belongs to me.”... And there he was locked up in there with two men I didn’t know from Adam and Eve.
‘So, I listened... through the door I tried to find out what was going on, what was being said, but they were speaking very low and I was furious not to catch anything.... At last I thought they were having a discussion.... All of a sudden, my master raised his voice and said, and I heard it perfectly clear... “That’s not possible. There would be no worse crime in the world!”... That I heard... with my own ears... that’s all I heard.... I was still dumbfounded when the door opened and the two strangers fell against me....
‘“Don’t harm her!” cried Monsieur Latouche as he carefully closed the door behind him. “I am as responsible for her as for myself.”... And he came to me and said: “Babette, no one will question you; you have heard or you have not heard. But you are going to kneel down and swear in the name of God that you will never speak to a living soul of what you have seen and heard. I thought you had gone out, so you did not see these men come up to my office. You do not know them. Swear that, Babette.’”
‘I looked at my master. I never saw his face like that before. Him, usually so gentle... I could do anything I wanted with him... anger had transformed him. He was trembling with it.... The two strangers were bent over me with threatening faces. I fell on my knees and I swore what they asked me to.... Then they went off, one behind the other, looking cautiously down the street.
‘I got up more dead than alive, went down to the kitchen, and I was watching them out of sight when... just then... for the first time... I noticed the grinder!... He was standing just like a few minutes ago, under the street lamp.... I crossed myself... misfortune had come to the house.’
Listening intently to Babette’s story, the secretary had never once taken his eyes of the grinder. He had watched every one of his movements, and he was not a little impressed to see him make mysterious signs over his box.... Finally, once again the Walking Box vanished into the night.
Babette got up.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘bad luck is in the house.’
‘And these men,’ asked Patard, stirred beyond words by the housekeeper’s story, ‘these men, have you ever seen them again?’
‘There’s one of them I never saw again, because he’s dead. I saw his picture in the paper. That’s that Monsieur Mortimar.’
The secretary started.
‘Monsieur Mortimar... and the other, the other?’
‘The other... I saw his photograph in the paper.... It was Monsieur d’Aulnay.’
‘Monsieur d’Aulnay... and you saw him again?’
‘Yes, him too... I saw him again. He came here the night before his death.’
‘The night before his death! Night before last?’
‘Night before last... and no sooner had he arrived than I saw the grinder in the court. The moment he saw me, he fled, as usual. But at once I thought, “Bad sign, bad sign!”... Mr Secretary, my great-aunt used to say to me always: “Babette, beware the grinders!”... And my great aunt, who was very old, Mr Secretary, knew a great deal about such things. She lived just opposite La Baucal, the night they murdered Fualdes, down in Rodez where I was born... and she heard the tune of the crime... the tune the hand-organ players and the grinders played in the street, while on the table, La Baucal and Bastide and the others were cutting the poor man’s throat.... It’s a tune... which always stayed in her ears... the poor old woman, and she sang it to me very secretly, very low, so no one would hear her... a tune... a tune.’
With the stiff movements of an automaton, Babette suddenly stood up straight. On her face, lighted by the pale reddish streak from the street lamp opposite, was stamped inexpressible terror. Her stiff arm pointed toward the street, from whence floated an old air, slow, faint, desperately melancholy.
‘That very tune!’ she rattled. ‘Listen... it was that very tune!’
Chapter 4. Martin Latouche
AT THAT VERY moment a terrible crash in the room just over the kitchen shook the ceiling. It sounded as though some sort of struggle was going on up there, as though furniture was being overturned. The house trembled.
‘They’re killing him!’ Babette yelled. ‘Help! Help!’
She leaped to the fireplace, seized a poker, rushed out of the kitchen, tore up the stairs.
‘My God!’ Hippolyte Patard murmured.
He stayed where he was, prostrate with fear, broken by the horror of the situation, while in the street the accursed tune kept up its dull rhythm, accomplice of some new crime — a tune of death eternally-drowning out the shrieks of its victims. There it was now, all alone, smothering every other sound. It had reached the throbbing ears of Hippolyte Patard... fallen upon his chilled heart.
He felt he was on the verge of fainting. But the shame he suddenly felt for his weakness held him back on the brink of that dark abyss into which the human soul, suddenly dizzy, lets itself fall. He remembered just in time that he was the secretary of the Academy. Thus aroused to a great moral and physical effort, he grasped in his left hand his umbrella, in his right a pair of fire-tongs, and found himself before a door on the first floor which Babette was pounding with her poker.... It was opened at once.
‘Are you always so crazy, Babette?’ Patard heard a thin but quiet voice say.
A man of some sixty years, robust, with wavy gray hair, a fine white beard framing a handsome face and gentle eyes, stood in the doorway.
It was Martin Latouche.
When his eyes fell upon Hippolyte Patard standing there with his tongs in one hand and his umbrella in the other, he couldn’t suppress a smile.
‘You, my dear Patard! What’s the trouble?’ he asked, bowing respectfully.
‘Ah, Monsieur,’ Babette cried as she threw down the poker, ‘that’s just what we want you to tell us. What in Heaven’s name was making such a terrible noise? We thought some one was murdering you.... And then the grinder is under our very windows, grinding out that terrible tune.’
‘He’d better go off to bed,’ Latouche answered quietly, ‘and you too, my good Babette.’
Then turning toward Patard, he said, ‘Dear Mr Secretary, I am curious to know to what I am indebted for the honor of your visit at such an hour?’
He led Patard into the library and took the tongs from him. But Babette had followed them in.
She looked all around.
The furniture was in its proper place... tables, chairs, book-shelves... everything in order.
‘But surely,’ she said, ‘this gentleman and I were not dreaming! It sounded as if a fight was going on up here.’
‘Calm yourself, Babette.... I was in my writing-room and stumbled over an armchair, that’s all.... I won’t need you any more... good-night.’ Babette looked suspiciously at the door of the little writing-room, that door which was never open to her, and sighed.
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‘You never want me in that room.’
‘Leave us, Babette.’
‘Promise you’ll do nothing more about the Academy.’
‘Babette, will you leave us?’
‘You know that you write letters you don’t mail... that you’re always liable to receive strangers in secret—’
‘What’s that?’
‘ — strangers from the Academy.
‘Babette, there weren’t any strangers from the Academy!’
‘Oh those men never get to be known until they’re dead!’
No sooner had she uttered these words than Latouche seized her by the throat, shouting, ‘Be quiet.’
It was the first time he had ever laid violent hands on his old servant, and he was sorry at once, and especially because the secretary of the Academy had witnessed his outburst.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, trying to control the emotion which was clearly gripping him, ‘but that foolish old Babette has the power of exasperating me tonight... ah, woman’s obstinacy!... Please be seated, sir.’ Latouche offered Patard an armchair with its back to Babette and he too turned his back on her. They both tried to forget that she was there, since she wouldn’t leave.
‘Monsieur Latouche,’ said Babette suddenly, ‘after what you have just done to me I may expect anything; you may even kill me. But I have told Mr Secretary here everything.’
Latouche wheeled around. His head was entirely in the shadow, and Patard was unable to read on his face his excited feelings, but the hand of the man, leaning against the table, was shaking. It was several minutes before he could say a word.
‘What did you tell Monsieur Patard, Babette?’ he asked at last.
‘I told him that Monsieur d’Aulnay and Monsieur Mortimar came here and were closeted with you in the little writing-room before they went to die at the Academy.’
‘You promised to say nothing about it.’
‘Yes, but I spoke of it only to save you. If I didn’t do something, you would go right there and die, just like the others.’
‘What else did you tell the secretary?’ said Latouche in a broken voice.
‘I told him what I heard when I listened at the door of the little writing-room. I told him I heard you say, “No, no, that’s not possible, that would be the worst crime in the world.’”
For what seemed a long time, Latouche said nothing. He was thinking deeply. Patard was made more uncomfortable by the oppressive silence in the old house at that moment than he had been by the tune of the organ-grinder a little while ago.
‘You didn’t hear anything else?’ Latouche finally said. ‘Babette, you didn’t tell anything else?’
‘Nothing at all.’
Suddenly, to the utter surprise of the servant and Patard, Latouche let out a big, hearty laugh. He went up to Babette and patted her cheek.
‘I only wanted to frighten you, you old goose; you’ve got a good heart, and I think a lot of you. Now I want to talk to Monsieur Patard. I’ll see you in the morning, Babette.’
‘May God keep you until then, sir. I have done my duty.’
She bowed ceremoniously and withdrew, carefully closing the library door after her.
Latouche listened to her footsteps as she went down the stairs.
‘Oh, these old servants; they are devotion itself, and yet often annoying. She’s a little bit touched, you know. Those two deaths at the Academy have affected her....
‘As she told you, Monsieur d’Aulnay talked to me here the night before his death. He was very much impressed by Mortimar’s sudden death following Eliphas’ public warnings. Maxime d’Aulnay had a weak heart. When he, like Mortimar, received a threatening letter, sent I am sure by some practical joker, he must have been terribly frightened, in spite of his bold front. Having a weak heart, that was all he needed to—’
Patard rose. He took a long breath and heaved one of those deep sighs that seem to restore life to divers who have been long under the water.
‘Ah, my dear Latouche,’ he said, ‘what a relief it is to hear you say that!
I will not hide from you that with all those stories of your Babette, I also was beginning to doubt the truth, which must, however, be obvious to every person of common sense.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Latouche answered gently, ‘I see how that could be... memories of the Fualdes affair... my meetings with Mortimar and d’Aulnay... their deaths right afterward... the terrible words spoken in my little writing-room—’
‘That’s true,’ Patard broke in, ‘I didn’t know what to think.’
Latouche took the Secretary’s hands in his and shook them warmly, as a sign of complete confidence and friendship.
‘My dear Patard,’ he said, ‘may I ask you to come into my little writing-room?’
It was a small, square room. The window was open; a table and an armchair were overturned and papers and books lay in great disorder about the room. A lamp on the piano lighted up some strange-looking musical instruments hanging on the wall. Hippolyte Patard was perplexed. Martin Latouche locked the door, went to the window, looked out for a moment, then closed it.
‘I’m sure he’s gone now,’ he said. ‘He must have realized that again tonight there was nothing he could do about it.’
‘Who?’ asked Patard, troubled.
‘Oh, the grinder, of course, as foolish old Babette calls him,’ he said, as he began to put tables and chairs back in place. A kindly, child-like smile lighted up his face as he turned to the secretary and said in a low voice:
‘You see, my dear Patard, this little room belongs to me. It’s not as well cared for as the rest of the house because Babette is not allowed to step foot into it!... Here’s where I hide my musical instruments, the whole collection... if Babette ever knew, she would throw every one of them into the fire.... My old Northern lyre and Fifteenth Century harp... and my psalter... and my guitar... oh, by the way, have you seen my guitar?... just look at it!... and my lute... and my mandolin... oh, you’re admiring my guitar... it’s the oldest one in existence, it may interest you to know.... Well, she would throw them all right into the fire. Yes, yes, that’s the truth... she doesn’t like music.’
He sighed deeply and went on:
‘And just because she’s been brought up on all that tragic Fualdes incident... in our youth, at Rodez, that’s all any one talked about... of the grinders who were playing their organs while Fualdes was being murdered... since then Babette has never wanted to look at another musical instrument... you’ll never know, Mr Secretary, how many schemes I’ve had to think up just to have these instruments brought in here!
‘Just now, for instance, I want to buy a hand-organ, as they’re called, one of the oldest in existence. The poor devil who was grinding music out of it hadn’t the least idea he had such a treasure!... When I ran across him one afternoon the poor man was begging... I’m an honest man... I told him I’d give him five hundred francs for his box.... We closed the deal at once. Five hundred francs was a fortune to him and I didn’t want to rob him.... I promised him all I had. But the hardest thing to arrange was to get possession of the instrument. Babette is sure to be in the house every time the man comes.... She runs into him in the courtyard, on the stairs, just when we think she’s gone out for the afternoon. And then there’s the very devil of a chase! Lucky for him he can run! This evening we had it all arranged that when Babette was safe in bed, I was to hoist the instrument up into the little den with ropes.... So there I was up on the table and just as I was going to throw the ropes, the table turned upside down!... that was at the very moment you both came in, thinking that I was being murdered!... You certainly did look funny, Mr Secretary, with your umbrella and your fire-tongs!... Very funny, but you meant well!’
Martin Latouche laughed heartily. The secretary, too, could laugh now, not only at the funny picture Latouche had drawn of him, but at his own fear of the Walking Box.
‘How naturally everything is explained!’ thought Hippolyte Patard.
‘Don’t be too sorry,’ said Latouche, serious again. ‘If I didn’t have Babette, I would have been in the poor-house long ago. We’re not rich - far from it — and in the beginning I did many a foolish thing in order to add to my collection! Good old Babette, she often has to squeeze the pennies, and she deprives herself of many things just to give them to me. She watches out for me as though she were my mother... but she can’t endure the sound of music.
‘Ah,’ he said, as he touched his instruments lovingly, ‘see, I caress them gently, so gently that we always weep together... and then sometimes... when I have succeeded in sending Babette off on some errand... then I take my little guitar I’ve restrung with some old strings I picked up, and I play old airs just as though I were a real troubadour... oh, no, no indeed, Mr Secretary, I’m not unhappy at all... and then, too, I have my piano... I do as I like with my piano... I play all the tunes I want to... loud, tempestuous preludes, the most devastating marches. Ah, it’s a superb piano... and it doesn’t bother Babette a bit!’
Saying which, Latouche sat down at a piano and his fingers began to race up and down the keyboard in a veritable fury. Monsieur Patard stood, expecting to hear mad sounds issue from the piano. But not a note was heard. It was a soundless piano, manufactured for considerate musicians who want to practise the scales without disturbing their neighbours.
‘Sometimes I play it all day long,’ said Latouche as his fingers bounded up and down the keyboard, his eyes lifted to heaven, his hair in great disorder, ‘and nobody hears it but me. It’s full and loud, like a complete orchestra.’