The Nickel Man

by Brian Stableford

  That day, Hélène welcomed him with a smile, glad to see her friend at a moment when a certain discouragement had overtaken her. And he set about consoling her, talking to her about the future that would open the doors of a new life to her. He made discreet allusions to the dreams he had glimpsed of a communal existence.

  Blushing, she closed his mouth with a word; but he told himself that she was gradually getting used to the idea, and, without insisting on his premature projects, he told her about his discovery.

  “You see!” she exclaimed. “My husband couldn’t be a murderer!”

  “Eh? He’s as good as, if he participated in the operation.”

  “He wouldn’t only have been yielding to his uncle’s demands.”

  “Does one obey a madman when he says: kill me?”

  Hélène was about to reply, but, summoned by the doorbell, she ran to open the door of the apartment.

  The door was scarcely ajar when two tall, thin bodies, clad in an incongruous fashion, slipped through the narrow gap, with a backward glance to make sure that they were not pursued.

  The young woman had uttered an exclamation, and she stared at them, trembling, without daring to speak, nailed to the spot by stupor.

  Those bizarre individuals with hirsute beards and dusty, stained garments, were Pilesèche and Bémolisant—or perhaps their ghosts—emerged from the waves that had engulfed them, suddenly surging forth to come and reproach her for her forgetfulness.

  “It’s me,” said the artist. “It’s really me. You thought you’d never see me again, didn’t you? But anything can happen...”

  The first shock having passed, she threw herself into his arms.

  “Oh, Népomucène, what joy! What surprise! You…you, alive!”

  The other kissed her, and let himself fall into a chair, exhausted. “Don’t speak so loudly. What if someone were to hear?” And as he perceived Rosamour, who emerged from the next room and came forward, Bémolisant suddenly sat up straight, galvanized. “The police!” he cried, his voice whistling in distress.

  And Rosamour, in his turn, furious at that untimely appearance, which wrecked all his plans, exclaimed: “You! What are you doing here? Why aren’t you dead? Was it necessary to come back to dishonor your wife?”

  Hélène looked at him, astonished and anxious. What? Hadn’t he said just now that they weren’t guilty?

  “Not guilty!” replied the agent, with bitter scorn. “Not guilty of having lent their collaboration to a mortal experiment! Certainly, the law will want to arrest such accomplices! Tell the examining magistrate about scientific experiments! Come on—they have only to run away, and since no one is worrying about them any longer, since they’re believed to be dead, they can live in some obscure corner where they’ll be forgotten, these resuscitated dead men...”

  But Pilesèche spoke in his turn. “What do you mean, collaborating in a mortal experiment? Monsieur Grillard left proof that we had nothing to do with it; before disappearing, he wrote a cryptographic declaration on the laboratory blackboard...”

  “I know that,” the agent interrupted, impatiently.

  “Well, if you know that, you know the terms of the declaration?”

  “Yes, certainly, but...”

  “Me, I have the translation…” He took out his wallet.

  Professional instinct gripped Rosamour again; his expression cleared; he was curious to know how Pilesèche had deciphered the inscription, and was already no longer thinking about the annoyance cause to him by the reappearance of the two phantoms.

  “Come on, let’s see,” he said. “Aha! It’s complete—no lacunae.”

  “I copied the inscription before passing the sponge over it.”

  Rosamour read: Bémol et Pil trouveront cops métallisé. Enlèveront enveloppe six mois après. Si mort, experience vérifie pas théorie. Maître Durand a testament et instructions. Which is to say: Bémol and Pil will find body metalized. Remove envelope after six months. If dead, experiment does not verify theory. Maître Durand has testament and instructions.

  “Perfect,” said the agent. “But who will persuade the examining magistrate that this isn’t a document made up for the needs of the case?”

  “You, Monsieur Rosamour,” said Hélène, intervening very judiciously, “since you photographed the half-effaced inscription. It will be easy for you to clarify the matter. And you know, I no longer understand you; you’ve given me enough signs of devotion for me nor to doubt you any longer, and yet, since the arrival of these unfortunates, you haven’t ceased to attack them. When they weren’t here you wanted to search for them everywhere; they appear and it’s almost with threats that you greet them. Come on, find our cordial sympathy again, and help us to get out of this cruel situation.”

  Rosamour was not a bad fellow, and was not a man who, for having seen the equilibrium of barely-sketched dream shattered, would abandon himself for long to an initial burst of spite. Thus, he immediately promised his most active collaboration, already sketching out a plan of campaign that would get him back into the Sûreté with the honors of war. Had he not untangled all the threads of the mysterious affair and put his hands on the actors in the drama, at the same time as the victim?

  In truth, hazard had played a greater role in that than science.

  Pilesèche wanted to go immediately and rid his former employer of his hermetic envelope. “He’s alive,” he never ceased repeating. “He’s still alive, and we have to get him out as soon as possible.”

  Bémolisant could scarcely believe it, but he was shaken by the laboratory assistant’s superb confidence. As for Rosamour, he was content to shrug his shoulders at the idea. Nevertheless, whatever condition the fellow was to be found in, it was time to hasten the solution.

  Just then, Jean Saure arrived with news. The time was approaching when the statue would be put up for auction in the newspaper’s dispatch room, which was already full of people—the All Paris of the premières. He had been astonished not to see his friend Rosamour arrive.

  The latter brought him up to date with the situation and instructed him to run and inform the head of the Sûreté that, if he would care to be present at the sale on the stroke of three o’clock, he would take responsibility for showing him the so-called criminals for which Boissonnald had sought so ineffectively, and also the so-called victim.

  In the meantime, the dispatch room presented the most animated appearance.

  The statue had been placed well in view, on a pedestal covered in red velvet, in front of a small platform where the auctioneer as chatting with a few collectors while awaiting the time of the sale.

  On chairs scattered throughout the room, ladies in beautiful dresses, lorgnettes raised, were chatting and laughing. There was an indescribable hubbub of pearly laughter, subtle compliments and society gossip, all overlapping.

  The head of the Sûreté had not hesitated to accompany the journalist. On arrival at the threshold of the dispatch room, he found himself face to face with Rosamour, who said to him, smiling: “This is my revenge, Monsieur.” At the same time, he stood aside to reveal two individuals dressed in costumes that were half-Spanish and half-naval—for they had not had time to change out of the borrowed clothes that had permitted them to make their journey. “These are the famous criminals that you believed to be dead. I have brought them to you as a gesture of good will; I’m handing them over to you.”

  The head of the Sûreté glanced behind him to make sure that he had two agents there ready to take possession of the two bandits. Rosamour noticed the movement.

  “Oh,” he said, “do me the favor of leaving them at liberty for the moment; I’ll answer for them, and you’ll doubtless be inviting them to return home tranquilly in a little while.”

  Accompanied by the magistrate they had all gone through the vestibule and through the door-curtain on hearing the voice of the auctioneer repeating bids and warming up the auction.

  “Come on, Messieurs, this statue in a masterpiece by an arti
st now dead, who will make no more. We’re at eighteen thousand francs; who’ll make it nineteen…?”

  “And now,” said Rosamour, “would you like me to show you Monsieur Grillard? Come with me.”

  Two or three collectors had been disputing the statue, but the battle had slowed and the auctioneer, his hammer raised, was about to confirm the sale.

  “No one else? At twenty thousand! That’s all? Sold!”

  At the same time, the hammer fell on the nickel breast, which rendered a dull sound, and, as if the impact, feeble though it was, had reawakened a dormant life in the statue, the metal began to quiver under increasing vibrations. The limbs stirred, as if to break their rigid articulations. The torso rose up in a supreme effort.

  There was a confused rumor in the room. Everyone had risen to their feet, terrified by such a prodigy.

  Suddenly, like a suit of armor opening and falling away, the pellicle of nickel cracked everywhere; a specter sat up, frightful to behold, the eyes bulging from their orbits, blackened skin appearing under the metallic scales, which fell away like dead skin from a leper.

  He projected his arms forward, uttered a loud cry and fell back upon the red velvet.

  This time, the man was really dead.

  The ladies fled, screaming, jostling one another at the door in an indescribable tumult, while Pilesèche tried to fray a passage toward his former master. He was torn between the horror of the spectacle and scientific curiosity.

  The experiment had succeeded!

  Conclusion

  The author could have closed this story with the last lines of the preceding chapter, for the abrupt discovery that put a end to the mystery of the nickel statue was the conclusion of the whole dramatic adventure, and the reader will easily divine that Rosamour had no difficult in exonerating the two unfortunates he had taken under his aegis from the suspicions that had so cruelly weighed upon them.

  He handled things so skillfully, moreover, that his own role in the affair took on the most brilliant appearance. He was the one who had contrived everything and discovered everything; he was the authentic deus ex machina; the Sûreté had no more to do than make their apologies to him for having treated him so badly, and reintegrate him into the ranks, with a promotion.

  Privately, Rosamour was perhaps less proud. He confessed that after having taken to much pride in his personal science, he had owed his eventual success to chance alone. A little modesty is never unbefitting; he promised himself that if future. He will undoubtedly have important cases to work on in future, for his has conquered the complete confidence of his superiors and the officers of the court, who no longer swear by anyone but him.

  Bémolisant has renounced decadent sculpture and, for the love of rhythm that the Spaniards had awoken in him, he has returned to music. The heritage of Uncle Népomucène, in any case, permits him that new fantasy, and even Madame Legris, to whom that windfall has brought serenity, forgives his flights into blue skies inaccessible to vulgar souls.

  As for Pilesèche, he is continuing his experiments in physiology and hypnotism; he has devoted a veritable cult to the venerable scientist who proved, by his autovivisection, that the occlusion of living beings of the primate class is as facile as realizing that of a mere toad.42

  Nevertheless, if the author of this story dared to offer any advice to his readers, it would be to engage them not to try it at home.

  Pierre de Nolhac: The Night of Pius XII

  (1932)

  On that hot dry Roman night, His Holiness Pius XII43 woke up, as usual, in his study. The large windows overlooking the city allowed stifling air to enter. The old man felt fatigue arriving, and his eyelids became heavy with drowsiness...

  It was almost midnight. The duty chamberlain came in and announced the news: Il Duce had just been assassinated.

  The Pope closed his book, got up and, with his arms crossed over his white robe, seemed self-absorbed. The hero who was dead had had his moment in the history of the Church and merited a double prayer. Then the pontiff’s eyes interrogated: When? How? By whom? But the tragic event remained devoid of detail; the telephone had only transmitted a few words, and the apparatus was no longer responding.

  Pius XII gazed at the city. The Alban hills seemed to be suspended on the horizon. A slender ray of moonlight wandered over cupolas, leaving the quotidian illumination all of its brightness. A singular silence had, however, arrested the nocturnal rumor; the abandoned cafes and deserted streets were divined in an instant, the last hastily-closed shutters covering the shop-windows.

  Abruptly and simultaneously, the lights on the seven hills went out. The electric current had been cut off. The Pope thought about the terror that descended upon Rome on the day of Caesar’s death.

  Successive detonations broke the silence and, almost at the same time, three sheaves of flame sprang forth over the city. The nuclei of the fires were visible.

  “That’s the Ministry of the Interior, The Communication Centre, and the Palais de Venise, without a doubt,” said the young priest.

  Red reflections could, in fact, be seen on the marble of the monument to Victor Emanuel overlooking the Capitol.

  Soon, the Quirinal was in flames. The Revolution was master in Rome.

  A sound of footsteps and speech filled the antechamber. The Cardinal Secretary of State appeared with the governor of the Vatican City and a few prelates. At the same time, a bullet fired from Saint Peter’s Square whistled through a window and was flattened out by the ceiling.

  “That’s a warning,” said the governor. “The mob isn’t far away.”

  A troop was coming through Borgo, singing long-forgotten songs, and groups carrying torches were seen forming in the square and invading the colonnades.

  The cardinal spoke to Pius XII in a low voice, as if to vanquish a hesitation.

  “Your Holiness’s duty is not only to us,” he said. “It’s to the world that his life and the freedom of his speech belongs. The hour of sacrifice has come…everything is ready.”

  The Pope’s gaze consulted the great crucifix on the wall.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  The Holy Father, in a black cassock, had taken the head of the group. They went down the steps, traversed the Court of St. Damasus and reached the bronze door via the marble staircase. The Swiss Guards who were barricading it turned toward him, and the young men’s acclamation, requesting one last blessing, covered the threats from outside.

  The door had just been shaken by a violent blow, which resounded for a long time in the galleries. Unhurriedly, the Pope went into St. Peter’s by the interior passage, where all of the awakened Vatican joined him.

  No noise any longer reached the immense nave, full of darkness, The lamps of the tomb of the Apostles were the sole points of light. Pius XII knelt down for a long time in the sacred place, and no one could tell what information he received from the pontiffs buried in the crypt, the long chain of martyrs and confessors of the faith of which he was the last link. The entire silent prayer of the centuries rose up around him, and from the sumptuous monuments of the basilica, at that decisive moment, the counsel of great humility seemed to emerge.

  A few moments later, the inhabitants of the Vatican City gathered at the aviation post. The Pope announced that the pilot would return that same day. He embraced the cardinals, extended his hand over the tearful old servants, and then took the arm of the Cardinal Secretary of State. The two old men climbed into the cockpit together.

  The engine roared, and the airplane rose into the sky of Rome, tracing its route among the stars.

  It was four o’clock in the afternoon. In his beautiful study at the Hôtel de Ville, the Maire of Avignon sponged his brow, fatigued by having expedited, in such oppressive heat, so many current affairs that he would have preferred to allow to run on.

  There were recently-emptied beer-bottles amid the files, and although he was in his shirt-sleeves in order to keep cool, the magistrate thought that a big city imposes heavy duties
on its elected officials.

  He was allowing himself to slide toward a reparative siesta when the usher knocked. Two priests with foreign accents were at the door and insisted on being seen. Even though he only belonged the most moderate Revolutionary Socialist Party in Avignon, the Maire was not “pro-priest,” but he was courteous to foreigners. He shook his pipe, put his jacket on and offered seats to the two cassocks who came in.

  One of the priests was short; he sat down without saying a word, with a singular majesty. The other, tall and vigorous beneath his white hair, spoke without embarrassment.

  “Monsieur le Maire,” he said, “His Holiness Pope Pius XII accepts your invitation. Circumstances have obliged him to quit Rome, and he accepts with gratitude the hospitality that you offer him in the Palais d’Avignon.”

  “What invitation, Monsieur l’Abbé?” said the Maire. “I don’t understand the allusion.”

  The foreigner took an old newspaper clipping from a wallet and handed it to the Maire, who read aloud:

  “When the Holy Father wishes, when he has had enough of living in a land of dictatorship and tyranny, let him return for a sojourn in the Comtat; we take pleasure in offering him accommodation in the ancient papal palace. The reds here will rejoice in giving him a good welcome.”

  At the bottom of the article was his own signature.

  “That’s true,” he said. “I’d forgotten that galéjade.”44

  “I don’t understand that word,” said the priest, “but I know that Provençals are men of their word and that they respect misfortune.”