‘Our trip was not a merry one. I confess that in spite of the certainty I now had of being able to marry Olympe and in spite of the hope Lieutenant Jacobini had of soon being able to cheer up my widow, this double prospect did not fill us with merriment. The house on Place de l’Abbaye seemed less like a place of joy to us now and more like a tomb!
‘The first thing I asked Jacobini, after he had told me the sinister news, was naturally if he could give me a few details on the doctor’s death. How had he died? He answered gloomily that he hadn’t the faintest idea and that no one else had either; but that he more than anyone wanted to get to the bottom of it. That was the reason for his return.
‘“And you?” he asked me.
‘“Oh,” I answered, “as for me, you can understand that I am interested in the matter at least as much as you are.”
‘“Yes,” he replied without the slightest sarcasm, “I understand that... It is an even more urgent matter for you.”
‘“But,” I went on, “they must have called his death by some name!”
“‘Not any more of a name than they gave the death of Olympe’s first husband. They claimed that Delphin was poisoned by some laboratory experiment, but the thing was never proved. And as far as Dr Sabin is concerned it can’t be that.”
“‘All these deaths are certainly very strange! Tell me, Jacobini, aren’t the police interested in this?”
‘“Yes. Our assistant district attorney, number eleven, has ordered an investigation. I ought to add that Olympe was the first to ask it... They made an autopsy on the body...”
‘“And?”
“‘And found nothing... But that doesn’t prove a thing,” he added in a tone which struck me.
‘“What do you mean? Have you a suspicion?”
‘“In such matters,” replied Jacobini, “it is not permissible to have suspicions. One must be certain or keep still.” And he kept still.
‘But all this did not tend to quiet my anxiety.
“‘Then he died in his bed? Was he ill?”
‘“No! Olympe found him about five o’clock in the afternoon in his room, stretched out on the floor with a table and chair overturned, his mouth still foaming and his face distorted from horror... It was proved that he had been in the room alone from three o’clock on and that the house was completely deserted, as the servants had gone to a nearby fair.”
‘“And - Madame Sabin?”
‘“She had lunched with him in the little pavilion at the end of the garden and had remained there to embroider with Palmire.”
‘“Then what was the conclusion of the inquest?”
‘“That Dr Sabin died from an attack of epilepsy.”
‘“Was he subject to it?”
‘“No, but it seems that that does not always follow.”
‘We were silent a long time. Then I sighed.
‘“We ought to be sincerely sorry for Olympe,” I said, “because otherwise it would be too horrible.”
‘“Yes,” he replied after thinking a moment, “you are right! It would be too horrible... She must be pitied. Besides, Palmire says that she is completely crushed. No one ever sees her now. She never goes out. According to gossip she wants to enter a convent... It is natural enough that after three unfortunate marriages like these she should be sick of matrimony - and - and I congratulate you,” he added with a strange laugh. Then he went on quickly, because he was an extremely polite fellow: “I hope I haven’t pained you in saying that?”
‘“I don’t know,” I answered.
‘We arrived an hour later. We hadn’t forewarned anyone and it was already late at night. We had decided to go directly to the Hotel de Bourgogne, and I was surprised to find the solicitor’s son, number eight, waiting for us on the platform. I remembered his name now; he was called Juste. There is nothing to say about him except that he was an honest fellow, and that Dr Sabin had often treated him for rheumatism.
‘“I knew that you had landed,” he said to me, “and that you were taking this train. What hotel are you going to?”
‘“To the Bourgogne with Lieutenant Jacobini.”
‘Juste had been so preoccupied with me that he hadn’t noticed my companion. He shook him warmly by the hand and said that he would go with us.
‘I was growing more puzzled every moment. At the hotel he followed me to my room and gave me a packet for which he asked a receipt.
‘“This was entrusted to my honour,” he said, “with the mission of giving it into your own hands.”
‘I examined the sealed envelope quickly and recognized the writing immediately. My name was written on the outside with the addition: “To be delivered after my death.”
‘“Yes,” the other replied, “I have accomplished my mission and I am only accountable to him; but since I haven’t the faintest idea of what is contained in that letter, I want a receipt, to be on the safe side.”
‘I gave him his receipt.
“‘In giving you this letter,” I asked, “Dr Sabin said nothing special?”
‘“Not a thing,” he replied. “He told me nothing, absolutely nothing.”
‘Upon which he shook my hand and took leave of me a bit hurriedly. He seemed free of a great weight. I opened the letter feverishly.
‘Ten minutes later someone knocked at Jacobini’s door. He was just about to get into bed and called out, asking who was there. As no one answered him, he went to the door and opened it impatiently. A ghost with a letter in its hands entered his room. This ghost was I and I hadn’t strength enough even to speak. He sat me down, took the letter from my hands, locked the door and read.
‘I will never forget him as he stood there, bent over the lamp. The letter which had plunged me into a sort of prostration had an entirely different effect on him. Everything about him seemed to tighten up while with me there had been a complete loosening of my willpower. He frowned heavily, his eyebrows were knitted, his chin grew more prominent, and a dangerous flame like the cold steel flash of a sword lit the eyes intent on reading the document, a document which had been written by the trembling hand of a man who knew himself condemned to death.
‘This is what Dr Sabin had written. The original has long been in the police files but this is a copy:’
Dear Zinzin:
Before marrying Olympe I want you to read this: It is a man who is about to die who is writing to you. I have been horribly poisoned. No one knows it except the guilty one or guilty ones and me. I have not complained, for I have got only what I deserved. Thanks to strong drugs I have been able at times to overcome the pain which is destroying me and still to appear human. Thus I have been able to see Juste without giving anything away to him, nor will you tell him anything unless he, too, should want to marry Olympe - in which case you will show him this letter. But I hope that this will be the end of the matter and that after my death no one will wish to take my place, our place, the place of the three men who have entered this house full of health and life and who have disappeared from it, carrying with them the enigma of their triple misfortune.
As far as possible keep scandal from Olympe. I have loved her too much. I still love her, perhaps. No scandal, therefore unless it be absolutely necessary. And besides, I am certain of nothing. In such a case, proof of the guilt is necessary, and I have none. I might be able to accuse her with a chance of not making a mistake, but I haven’t the right; and I will tell you why. You know that after Hubert’s death I returned a verdict of suicide. But Hubert did not commit suicide. Hubert was murdered!
And I knew the truth at my first sight of the body by the position of the pistol in his hand. The weapon had been placed in his hand, after his death! I won’t go into details, but I could have proved it very easily.
I had been called immediately after the discovery of the body in the hope that perhaps life still stirred within him, but it was all over. Next to the corpse stood Olympe in tears. Before looking at the woman I had seen the pistol and had already reached a conclusion. The
n I looked at the woman. You may have suspected the affectionate ties that bound us already. Besides, Olympe made no effort to hide the truth, and I had spoken to her about it more than once. Looking at her, it seemed to me that her eyes wavered after catching mine and they left me the impression of an ardent and silent plea. Even today I am sure that I was not mistaken and I feel a chill of horror. That woman killed Hubert in order to be mine! It was horrible, but I adored her, and not only did I not denounce her, but without her noticing and for pity of her I slipped the pistol into the correct position. I made the matter easy for the board of experts. You see, Zinzin, old man, I’m not hiding anything from you. You understand now why I haven’t the right to accuse this woman. My cowardice has made me her accomplice.
I think we loved each other like the damned, trying to forget in the embrace of love a lost paradise. Between us there never came a thought of Hubert or Delphin. One would have said that Olympe had never known those two men. But I, I was curious to know how Delphin had died and I began a cunning investigation which one day they must have noticed. From that day on, I am sure, my death was decided.
Certain contradictory remarks made by Palmire concerning Delphin’s experiments and the rather mysterious circumstances of his death led me to certain clues in which I found the almost certainty of Olympe’s guilt in the poisoning of Delphin with Palmire as an accomplice. I had not said anything yet to Olympe, who did not seem to suspect my thoughts. I attempted to keep as hidden as possible the hideous suspicions. But one day I felt that I had been struck! A high fever, a strange uneasiness and dull pains warned me that I had been poisoned. I still said nothing because I wanted to know - to know. And I believed that I had done the necessary things to save me in time from a drug which was already attacking the sources of life - and which I could not rid myself of.
How did they go about it?... To make sure that it was she, I ate nothing except what she gave me, and we drank from the same glass. Yes, but we did not eat from the same plate! Ah, what horror!
.. And this is where the matter rests today as I write you this letter... I have just had an attack which I have concealed from her. Is she really ignorant of it? Or does she find pleasure in it? Lord God! And yet my face has changed in these last weeks and several times I have pushed her from my arms. Still she seems to have noticed nothing. Oh, the monster! The two monsters! Yes, two, because I have discovered Palmire spying on me and the two of them are always together. Nevertheless, Olympe said to me yesterday: ‘It’s funny how men change after a few weeks of marriage! After a short while they are unrecognisable. They are no longer interesting!’
Zinzin, you will have this letter and I am going to talk to her. But I won’t be telling her anything she doesn’t already know. She must believe by now that I know by whose hands her first two husbands were killed; but I must tell her that I know that she is killing the third and that she must stop there!
Ah, Olympe, our Olympe!... If you knew, Zinzin, you would understand - and you would pardon me... Perhaps, after all, she is not guilty - perhaps Palmire is responsible, perhaps Palmire did it all alone. Ah, my God, if that could be true!... This is an idea which has come to me a little late - too late!... Think it over, Zinzin. I am past thinking now. I suffer too much... And yet I do not like to die without knowing. If she could only prove to me that it is Palmire who did it alone! I love her still. Zinzin!
‘After this last line the writing was so disordered and jumbled that it was difficult to read, and the signature which followed seemed to express the supreme effort of a man from whom life is escaping. And yet Dr Sabin could not have died that day. Probably by the feverish use of some medicine he was able to suspend his destiny. We know that the unfortunate man did not die until after lunch the next day...
‘I made the copy which you have just read,’ Zinzin continued, ‘that same night, because Lieutenant Jacobini demanded the original. He had the right to it, since he was going to take my place! I said all the things that you or anyone would say in such horrible circumstances; but I realised that his mind was made up and that there was nothing more to do. Of course, it was no longer a question of love for Olympe.
‘He had made a vow, a vow to punish her for her crimes. He would force her to confess, make her give herself up, and then we would see!...
‘He did not tell me what we would see, but it was easy enough to understand on catching sight of his fierce, terrible look when he spoke.
‘“Dr Sabin got his just deserts,” he said to me, “and I do not pity him; but that poor Hubert was my friend, and Delphin I loved as a younger brother and I may be responsible for his death. Therefore, I, Jacobini, am going to avenge them.”
‘To accomplish that he decided to marry Olympe.
‘“And if she doesn’t want to marry?” I asked him.
‘He laughed a horrible laugh. “A woman like her will not refuse a man like me!”
‘He was right. Olympe married number five and I was best man for Jacobini. He insisted upon it. During the ceremony he stood with his arms crossed at the foot of the chancel beside his kneeling bride and looked already like a statue of vengeance. Olympe was no longer the girl we had all known and loved. There was something strangely funereal in her beauty and it seemed already to be bending under the hand of death. She looked like the figures in marble one sees on tombstones. I never expected to see her again, for the next day I set out to sea.
‘At every port I threw myself on the newspapers; I opened my mail with trembling, feverish hands. No news reached me of the hideous tragedy that I felt must have been happening at home during my absence. When, three months later, I returned, my first question was... yes, you have guessed it...
“‘Is nothing changed around here?”
‘“Goodness, no.”
“‘And how are the Jacobinis?”
‘“The Jacobinis are fine,” I was told.
‘The next day Jacobini came to call on me. He knew that I had just returned. He looked exceedingly well and had prolonged his furlough, since Olympe refused to leave the house even though he hated it. “At heart I can’t blame her,” he explained. “She believes that if she leaves the house and this town where she spent such a happy youth it will look as though the evil tongues which claim she had a hand in the death of her three husbands have some cause for their suspicions.”
‘I looked at Jacobini, but he met my gaze clearly.
‘“I understand your astonishment,” he said, “but Olympe is not to be suspected.”
‘“So much the better, so much the better. Let’s drop the subject, then.”
‘“Zinzin!”
‘“Yes, Jacobini!”
‘“I have come to talk to you and you must listen to me. The first thing I did on returning to the house after the wedding was to show her Dr Sabin’s letter. Olympe cried, but did not seem in the least astonished.
“‘I had a suspicion of that,” she confessed to me. “Everybody thinks I am a monster. I wonder that you wanted to marry me.”
““I will tell you why in due time,’ I replied, ‘but for the moment we are concerned with Dr Sabin’s letter.’
““What can I say?’ she continued bitterly. ‘I am no more guilty of Hubert’s death, of which they suspect me, than I am of my first husband’s. Sabin loved me madly, and there were moments when his love was strangely like hatred. He let drop words from time to time that made me understand his horrible thought... and he started an abominable investigation. He questioned Palmire, who repeated everything to me. I tried to quiet him. Above all I wanted to avoid any scandal. I told myself that his state of mind would pass with time and that as I had nothing to hide, he would end by understanding that we were all the victims of a horrible fate. Then suddenly he believed himself poisoned. He did not tell me in the beginning. I myself did not mention the world “poison”, so that nothing definite should happen between us. I did not want to be forced to call in the police or to send him from the house, but as he continued to suffer I sugge
sted that he consult a doctor. He did nothing. The day of his death he was under the influence of a strong drug that made him delirious. He insisted on coming to the table, and as I knew what he suspected I made a point of drinking only what he drank and of eating from the same plate. At the dessert he threw himself at my feet and begged my pardon for having suspected me. He said he knew now that he was being poisoned by “that horrible Palmire”. And be begged me to aid him in fastening the guilt on her. As I tried naturally to defend her, he left me abruptly and locked himself in his room. You know the rest. It was I who asked for an autopsy.’”
‘Lieutenant Jacobini stopped.
‘“And that convinced you of her innocence?” I asked.
‘“No,” he answered. “If Olympe expected something of the nature of Sabin’s letter, I was ready for an explanation such as she gave me with a few tears thrown into the bargain. My next remark to my bride of an hour was very abrupt. ‘And what about the tali-tali, Olympe? What have you done with it?’ I asked.
‘“She started and turned a deathly white. ‘Oh,’ she moaned, ‘so you think that I poisoned him with tali-tali?’
“‘I took her by the wrist and it was like holding a hand of marble. ‘Listen, Olympe: Hubert died of an accident. I’ll grant that and it doesn’t matter to me; but Delphin was my friend and he and Dr Sabin died the same death. They were both poisoned by the tali-tali which leaves no trace. It was I who gave the poison to Delphin that he might analyse it and find an antidote if possible. I brought it back with my on my last return from Africa and I want to know what has become of it. It is a terrible poison which the wizards down there give to the unfortunates who are suspected of having brought the anger of bad spirits on the village. Its victims are legion... I am responsible for what it has done in France... What have you done with the tali-tali, Olympe?’
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 508
