Sauter bowed. “Will you permit me to ask you a few questions, Mademoiselle?”
“Anything you wish, Monsieur; once again, I have no reason to blush at the sentiment that has brought me to you.”
“How long is it since you received any news of your fiancé?”
“Eighteen months, Monsieur. At that time, he suddenly stopped writing.”
“And,” Sauter said, with a hint of embarrassment, “you don’t believe...”
“In his abandonment, a flight?” the young woman interrupted, with a dolorous laugh. “No, Monsieur—Monsieur Ménestin is not one of those who scorns a promise given.”
“Then you attribute his silence to a disappearance, since you don’t admit the idea of his death?”
“Yes, Monsieur. Paul is not dead, but the Germans doubtless have a powerful interest in making him disappear.”
“In that case,” Sauter murmured, “why haven’t they killed him?”
“Perhaps they have need of him?” suggested the young woman.
“Yes, perhaps…he was an engineer?”
“An engineer and chemist.”
“Aha! A chemist! That changes things slightly. In fact, if he had commenced certain endeavors, they might have need of him. One can remake calculations, but it’s only with difficulty that one can reconstitute a chemical formula whose elements are unknown. Well, Mademoiselle, retain all your hope and believe that the newspaper I direct will not abandon you—neither him nor you. With your permission, we’ll go up to the photographic service. I want to project before you a slide of one of the pages of the manuscript, and we’ll compare one of the letters you’ve brought with that image. We’ll know then what we’re dealing with. It will be an important fact, irrefutable and established. Tomorrow, or the day after, we’ll establish in the same way whether the letter in which Paul Ménestin announces his voluntary death is authentic or not. If the two proofs are conclusive, we’ll go on to the end.”
The young woman acquiesced with a nod of the head. Madame Régis, who had said nothing thus far, broke her silence.
“Like my daughter, Monsieur, I don’t believe that the poor child killed himself; he suffered from seeing the realization of his dream postponed, but he was sure of the heart of the one he loved, and he was valiant by nature, incapable of cowardice or desertion.”
Sauter rose to his feet, saying: “I’m already convinced, Madame. If you will, let’s go up.”
The two women got up. Sauter guiding them, allowed them to go ahead of him, opened a door and invited them to step into an elevator. In a matter of seconds they were on the terraces where the airplanes came to land, with the aid of which Le Monde ensured its distribution to the provinces, and even abroad.
On seeing them enter a large room entirely painted in dark red, an employee came toward them.
“Marcel,” said Sauter, “you’re going to project one of the slides of the manuscript and one that you’re going to make of one of these letters—it doesn’t matter which, as long as it includes the signature. Both on the same scale. How long will it take you?”
“Ten minutes.”
“Go.”
The employee drew away and disappeared. Sauter had the two women sit down in front of a small screen and continued interrogating the young woman at length.
He learned by that means that Paul Ménestin was an orphan, that she too no longer had her father, a former professor of Oriental Languages, and that she lived with her mother, thanks to a little capital amassed with difficulty. The two young people had been engaged to be married for less than a year when Paul had been solicited to take up an employment at the Neustadt Steelworks. It was a unique opportunity for him to get out of the rut and to earn enough in a year to establish himself modestly in Paris and marry the woman he loved.
The young woman had reached that point in her confidences when the room was suddenly plunged into darkness.
She had scarcely had time to recover from her emotion when the screen in front of them was illuminated; then the letter addressed by Paul to his fiancée and one of the pages of the manuscript were inscribed on the white surface in identical proportions.
Sauter was about to speak, but he heard a dolorous sigh, a cry uttered by Madame Régis, and the sound of a body falling.
“Light!” he shouted.
The arc-lights fitted to the ceiling crackled, and then, under the harsh white light they projected, Sauter saw the young woman lying on the floor, having fainted.
III. Paul Ménestin’s Last Letter
When Mathilde finally recovered her senses, she was lying on a divan in the editor-in-chief’s office. Her mother was supporting her in her arms. Through the light curtain of her eyelashes, scarcely raised, the young woman glimpsed the tall silhouette of Sauter bending over her.
She got up, painfully, and, passing her hand over her forehead, made a gesture of driving away the last veils still obscuring her mind. At that moment, Sauter leaned further toward her.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Much better,” she said, with a reassuring smile. “Excuse me.”
“Your emotion must have been very strong to plunge you into such a profound faint.”
“Oh yes! I thought I was going to die…I hoped that Paul was still alive, but a cruel doubt still tormented me, and when I saw that, thank Heaven, my unique hope was not disappointed, it seemed to me that my heart burst within my breast.”
“It will be necessary to be careful of that heart,” said Sauter, in an affectionate manner, taking hold of the young woman’s hands. “So, like me, you’re convinced that both handwritings are really those of your fiancé?”
“Absolutely.”
“It can’t be doubted for a second,” said Madame Régis, in her turn.
“Good,” added Sauter. “Then we’ll be victorious, be certain of it, Mademoiselle, for a kind of instinct tells me that the letter we’re expecting from Germany is fake. I’m not in the habit of letting myself go to sentiments that escape reasoning, but this time, that opinion has taken on the force of a conviction within me. So, you’ll sense, I’m certain, that it’s necessary not to allow yourself to be overcome by despair or chagrin. I’m going to have need of you, of all your courage. I want to find in you not merely a zealous collaborator but an energetic witness, whom nothing ought to trouble and whose certainty nothing can shake.”
“You can count on me, Monsieur,” said the young woman, getting up without her mother’s aid. “Your support has rendered me all my energy; whatever happens, I won’t weaken again.”
Her mother helped her to adjust her hair. The old lady seemed incapable of taking any part in a conversation whose outcome made her tremble in advance.
“Of the letters that I gave you,” the young woman said, “the last one will perhaps give you, as it gave me, the conviction that Paul Ménestin has been the victim of a trap. If the letter in which he announces his intention to commit suicide is not really his, as I believe, our task will be very difficult, but whatever role I might be called upon to play, I shall play it to the end, no matter what. If the letter is really his, I shall have nothing left to do but weep, alas, but I retain the intention to go to Neustadt with my mother, in order to gather the details of his life and end.”
“You will not go alone, Mademoiselle, and your decision singularly facilitates what I had the intention of doing. I had decided, in one or other of the alternatives that you have just envisaged, and which I envisaged myself, to send a skillful reporter out there once again, but whom, in spite of his skill, would doubtless be suspected, which would have hindered his investigation to the point of rendering it virtually useless. He will join you, and pass for a relative of yours.
“The objective that you appear to be pursuing is too human for anyone to suppose that your journey has any purpose other than the one overtly declared. In those conditions, it will be necessary to leave right away, tomorrow, or even this evening if you can. Here, to render your task easier, I shall
put on an appearance of declaring myself satisfied by the explanations, whatever they are, that the Ministry will give. When you return, furnished with the information you have been able to gather, we shall act. Then, when the moment has come, we shall light the petard—and believe me, it will make a noise.”
Mathilde had regained all her empire over herself; a flame of enthusiasm gleamed in her clear gaze.
“Count on me,” she said.
She was ready to leave, and extended her small gloved hand to Sauter.
“Wait a moment,” he said. “I haven’t finished. This evening, at six o’clock, one of the paper’s reporters, Monsieur Escander, furnished with my instructions, will come to your home. The express leaves at ten past eight. You’ll be in Neustadt, passing through Bohemia, the day after tomorrow, and about ten p.m.
“The next day you can start work, and be finished, unless there are unexpected complications, that same evening, or the following day at the worst. That would be longer than I expect,” he added, darting a glance at Madame Régis, who was listening with a visible anxiety.
“But if I’m accompanied,” the young woman out in, “my mother, who is old, can easily stay here; it won’t be the first time I’ve traveled alone. What prevents us, then, from taking the air-express to Vienna that leaves at nine o’clock? From there, we’ll catch the one that goes to Prague. We can then charter a plane, and thus be in Neustadt tomorrow evening.”
“Oh, my daughter!” said Madame Régis.
“Bravo!” cried Sauter.
The two exclamations were uttered at the same time, but the young woman did not pay any heed either of them. She continued: “That’s what it’s necessary to do, then, if you have no objection to make. I await your instructions.”
“They’ll be brief, before your determination, which facilitates matters. One of Le Monde’s airplanes will take you to Vienna. It leaves the terrace at nine o’clock. Between now and then I’ll have made the arrangements for it to accommodate you. Be here at eight-thirty at the latest.”
At that moment the department heads were announced.
Sauter, who felt that it was necessary not to give Madame Régis the opportunity to intervene in the debate, hastened the adieux, giving his final instructions to Mathilde as he guided the two women gently to the door.
Less than a minute thereafter, the mother and daughter were hurrying home.
Needless to say, the sentimental diplomacy, tears and determination of Madame Régis, employed by turns, were utterly futile; the young woman did not yield in her resolution.
Sauter rapidly gave orders to his colleagues; he was in haste to take cognizance of Paul Ménestin’s last letter to his fiancée.
We transcribe that letter faithfully here:
Neustadt
My darling, I received your letter. If you only knew what a comfort it has been for me, in this difficult exile, in which I truly see my memory of you as my unique hope!
I admire your soul, so reasonable, so serious and so loving, and you can have no suspicion of all the value that your delicate, elegant and pretty handwriting takes on in my eyes. It is a balm for me, for all the troubles that I endure patiently because it is necessary, but from which I would suffer a great deal more if I did not have your encouragement and your love.
Winter is advancing rapidly and promises to be harsh. Do you remember, a year ago, we were walking side by side through the melancholy and deserted pathways of the Petit Trianon. The trees were shedding their foliage and the wind was blowing the poor dead leaves around us in a slow waltz, but our hearts were full of sunlight? Today I feel some hope again, because I do not believe that I shall be subjected to the rigors of winter here; yes, my darling, it might be that shall return to you before the appointed time. This is the reason: the direction of the mines has caused me to pass from the engineering department to that of the chemists, and has given me for a mission a series of tasks, of researches, that I believe I ought not to accept, for reasons that I shall give you vocally.
You will understand my haste to see this year of exile concluded better when you know that I sense that I am being watched night and day. Espionage is raised here to the level of a religious dogma.
Don’t be alarmed, I beg you; here, everyone is watched, the French, as you can imagine, even more than the rest. They evidently want to know whether I’m writing compromising notes. They don’t know anything and won’t find anything. If I didn’t have the possibility of sending this letter by way of a French airplane that has just landed here because of a slight technical fault, and which is leaving again this evening, I wouldn’t say a quarter of what I’m saying, because I’m convinced that all our letters are opened and read; this one will escape checking and will be put in the post directly at Colmar.
“I believe that my refusal to accept the task they want to confide to me will lead to the annulment of my contract. It’s in that hope that I’ve already written to major factory-owners in France—everywhere, in sum, that I might exercise my profession. I only accepted this position in order to earn a large sum of money rapidly, but that necessity shouldn’t lead me to exceed my duty. So, if I expect, I’m invited to leave, I’ll accept, even if I have to lose a few thousand marks, I’m in so much haste to be with you, to hear your voice, to feel the tender gaze of your lovely eyes. I’m in haste, too, to be far away from the eternal suspicion by which I’m surrounded, far from the spider’s web that I feel being woven around me more tightly every day, which will soon imprison all my paces, all my steps and all my thoughts.
I still have many things to tell you, but I’m being summoned to the director’s office; I’ll resume this letter when I return.
What follows was evidently written the same day, but at six o’clock in the evening—which is to say, a few minutes before the departure of the French aircraft,
6 p.m.
I’m sorry, my darling, but there’s no question of a rupture; on the contrary, I found myself confronted by men whose courtesy surprised me. They declared themselves entirely disposed to keep to the terms of the contract, even apologizing for the excessive fashion—which I don’t much like—of having momentarily thought of getting out of it. I’m therefore obliged to go on to the end of my engagement. I’m heart-broken. I was already thinking about liberation, and now it will be necessary for me to spend another eight months here.
Eight months—an eternity—far from you, in this black and sullen city, beneath a bleak sky, among hostile people whose politeness is only a mask. Anyway, be courageous. It might be the case that you won’t have news of me for some time, but don’t worry. I’m going on a mission to some of the firm’s factories; that will give me a great deal of work to do, and I’ll always be traveling over mountains and valleys, but I hope nevertheless not to leave you for long without letters. Continue to write to me here, but be prudent. My post will be monitored.
The letter concluded with formulae of tenderness addressed to the young woman and her mother.
Sauter folded the letter slowly and put it in the secret drawer of his desk. Then he became pensive.
Certainly, reading between the lines of the latter part of the letter, discouragement was transparent, but not despair. It was a cry of impatience, not of farewell. It remained evident, however, that Paul Ménestin was suspected and watched.
Then again, if, as he had written, the engineer had been charged with chemical research that he had refused to undertake, he might have been imprisoned until he finally consented. That was quite plausible.
The hour to print the newspaper was about to chime. Sauter went down to the machine room. Passing through the editorial section, he gave Félix Escander the order to accompany him to the presses, where he was going to cast an eye over the setting of the pages.
Félix Escander might have been thirty; short, sturdy and muscular, his searching eyes behind lenses, he was a first-rate all-round sportsman. He was a redoubtable champion, for the finesse of his intelligence as well as the rudeness of h
is fists, courageous to the point of temerity, marvelously well-acquainted with all the tricks of his trade, and also in possession of a lively pen. He occupied a prominent position in the world of the press; Sauter held him in high esteem and only confided tasks to him worthy of his talent. The rest of the time, he left him to work peacefully in the Bibliothèque Nationale or the Archives on a history of the Valois-Angoulême, which was his great hobby-horse.
“Escander,” said the boss, “I’m going to confide a delicate task to you.”
“Good,” said Escander, simply, adjusting his pince-nez, which always had a tendency to slide down his nose.
“I’m going to confide a young woman to you... You’re not saying anything.”
“In general, I don’t much like transporting precious objects, but if it’s absolutely necessary, confide the young woman to me. What is it necessary to do?”
“You’re about to find out. Listen carefully, and make notes if you think it necessary.”
Sauter leaned on the printing press; every time he stopped looking at his collaborator, his rapid glance scanned the work that was continuing in the fever of the final hour.
Briefly and concisely, Sauter brought Escander up to date with the facts we know. While speaking, he followed attentively—or, at least, tried to follow—any sentiments that might by painted on the journalist’s physiognomy, but Escander remained absolutely impenetrable; not a muscle of his face budged. He listened, while delicately toying with a gilt-tipped cigarette that he taken from a silver case.
“Now, my dear, you know everything. It’s necessary to help the young woman and bring me back the elements of a sensational article. Don’t forget that, above all, you’re an investigator on a special mission: see well and see clearly. If events oblige you to make your identity known, don’t hesitate and don’t prevaricate; we’re a power with which it’s necessary to reckon. However, only do that as a last resort. The dispatch chief will give you ten thousand francs this evening. Its aircraft number twenty-one that will take you; orders have been given to fit it out specially with a view to receiving two passengers. Number fifteen will follow you, carrying the paper. In Vienna, do everything you judge to be useful, no matter what the cost, to reach Neustadt with the minimum possible delay; the same for coming back. You have three days, get a move on. That’s all—au revoir!”
The Mirror of Present Events Page 24
