“Yes,” said Escander, “by a man in a small building.”
“There it is.”
In fact, less than fifty meters away, there was a little cottage, like the ones that shelter the employees of railway companies—but it appeared to be deserted; the shutters of the two windows were closed, and from a distance it seemed completely abandoned.
XI. The Place Where the Ravine Was Excavated
It was, in fact, to a veritable auscultation of the ground that, for his part, the reporter devoted himself, searching for an indication or a vestige from which he could draw a conclusion, but he discovered nothing that could really put his sagacity on the alert. With the aid of his “pocket detective,” however, he took various photographs to note movements of the terrain and also, in order to prove, if necessary, that the manuscript might be held to be suspect—a sentiment that as beginning to impose itself upon him again.
He looked for the young woman, and found her some distance away with Alexis, making signals for him to come and join them. As soon as he saw the gleam in her eyes, Escander understood that she had discovered something.
“Look!” said Mathilde, when he had joined her—and she pointed with her gloved finger at a clump of leaves, withered but still green, partly buried in the soil, which appeared to have been trodden down.
“Well?” said Escander.
“Those dying leaves,” said the young woman, whose eyes were shining with a profound joy “are last summer’s, and they’re the leaves of a tree already old, as you can see by their tissue and their dimensions. Furthermore, they’re still on their branch.”
“I confess that I don’t understand,” said the reporter.
“I’m saying that they’re still on their branch; now, branches are attached to a trunk; that trunk is underground—the tree is buried.
“Great gods!” exclaimed Alexis, falling to his knees and beginning to dig in the ground. Escander did likewise, and the two men worked with so much energy that the young woman, glad to have convinced them, burst out laughing. Escander turned his head toward her, raising his head, and a broad smile illuminated his face, ordinarily not very cheerful.
“It’s marvelous! Truly marvelous!” exclaimed Alexis, throwing handfuls of earth around.
The hole that they had just hollowed out very easily, so friable was the earth, had laid bare the extremity of the branch of an ash tree as thick as a finger. It was in vain that the two men tugged on it from above to detach it from the soil; it would have given way if it had only been plunged into the ground, accidentally or deliberately, but they could not break it. Escander stood up, while Alexis, who had taken a large knife from his pocket, made the hole deeper.
“It’s evidence itself,” said Escander to the young woman, “and you’re worthier than I am to be the great reporter of Le Monde; I’m nothing but a donkey compared with the penetration of your intelligence. That branch, as you say, is attached to a trunk, and that trunk is entirely buried in the soil.”
Alexis stood up; he had cut the branch fifty centimeters from its extremity, and the branch was still ornamented by two small clumps of leaves, still alive. Thus, Escander observed, their burial was recent.
“We’re witnesses,” said the young man, presenting the branch to the young woman. “Here, Mademoiselle, this branch belongs to you, and never, I believe, has a more beautiful bouquet been offered.”
More emotional than she wanted to appear, Mathilde held her hand out to the reporter. Alexis wiped his knife, without saying anything.
“What they’ve done is formidable,” the reporter said, “and it’s easy to comprehend. As soon as Le Monde signaled the existence of Ménestin’s manuscript, these people sensed the danger and they’ve taken their precautions. Yes, Mademoiselle, thanks to you, and you alone, your faith, we’ve just had the revelation that the terrible danger identified by your fiancé really exists, and what they’ve done shows its extent. For the moment, let’s keep searching. One proof leads to another; let’s turn over the soil with our fingernails, if it’s necessary to carry out the task. We need more and better!”
Neither the young woman nor Alexis had any need to be encouraged, Mademoiselle Régis sensed that she had just grasped the thread that might lead, first to the truth, and after that to the man she loved—and even if she had to march toward the cruelest of certainties, she was more resolute than ever to go to the end of her mission with the same firm heart.
As for Alexis, he had too much taste for adventure in his blood not to be delighted.
As before, the three young people each went in a different direction, in quest of further discoveries. They came together again along a depression with a gentle slope and were about to climb the opposite slope of the depression when Escander, who was leaning on his cane, nearly fell over. Abruptly devoid of solid support, the cane had just sunk into the soil by twenty or thirty centimeters, and then stopped as it collided with a hard object.
On any other occasion, no one would have been troubled by such an incident, but in the present circumstances, everything was of interest. On his knees again, Alexis attacked the soil energetically with his hands. Escander, and even Mathilde, joined him. Feverishly, their hands dug, throwing back the earth. A joyful exclamation from Alexis brought the other two to their feet.
“Ah! Damned Boche! They like iron so much they sow bolts, and this one has already taken root.”
While speaking he showed his two companions the head of a bolt, perfectly visible at the bottom of the hole. In a matter of minutes the two men cleared out the bottom of the hole made by Alexis, and a metallic plate appeared in the form of an elongated hexagon, riveted to another piece of metal by fifteen large bolts.
Escander could not suppress a cry of triumph. “The bridge!” he exclaimed. “It’s the bridge! If we could keep digging, we could lay the whole thing bare. Oh, the bandits! At the first alert they’ve filled in the ravine. Bu don’t worry—we have them!”
Alexis listened open-mouthed. As for Mathilde, radiant, she was hanging on the reporter’s lips.
“Yes, certainly,” the later continued, his fever not yet calmed down. “Oh, certainly—we’re going to unmask them and we’ll clip the wings of the two-headed raptor that serves as their emblem.”
Escander took four photographs of the excavation and the bolted plate.
“Alexis,” he said, afterward, “fill that in.”
“That’s a pity,” said Alexis, already at work, “Because it really is work well done.”
They returned to the chauffeur, who enveloped them with a gaze charged with suspicion.
“Nice countryside,” said Alexis, resuming his place in the automobile. “One could spend one’s life here.”
But Escander wanted to have the last word. “Tell me, chauffeur, this place isn’t bad, but it but seems better still on the other side of the ravine?”
“What ravine?”
“The ravine.”
“There is no ravine—at least, I don’t know of one.”
“Perhaps you’re not a native?”
“I was born here.”
“That’s curious. We have, however, been told that there’s a pretty ravine near here.”
“You’ve been misled. There is no ravine; there never has been.”
“Take us back to town then,” said Mathilde, “to number eight Wilhelmstrasse.”
That was the address where Paul Ménestin had lodged.
The chauffeur started the vehicle. The two young people looked at one another with evident satisfaction. They had no need to speak to translate the sentiment of joy that gripped both of them. Had they not, in fact, attained, and even surpassed, the objective they wanted to achieve?
When the vehicle stopped it was the young woman who got out first. By virtue of a sentiment of exquisite delicacy, Escander allowed her to go into the house on her own, to which she had come as if to a pious pilgrimage.
A correctly-dressed old woman presented herself; sly and hypocritical, s
he waited. Mathilde explained the object of her visit. The old woman then hastened to be obliging, offering a seat and refreshments, which were refused; but she declared that it was absolutely impossible for her to give any information whatsoever, as she had only been in the house for three months and came from far away. As for the woman who had served as housekeeper to the former tenant she was dead, poor thing.
Mathilde was shown the bedroom and the small drawing room; nothing there reminded her of the man she loved.
The two young people went to the police, where they wanted to know what they could be told about Paul Ménestin. A functionary declared that he could not tell them anything except that: “One Saturday morning, Monsieur Ménestin went to the factory, as he did every morning, but he was not seen there, and did not reappear. A letter was found in his home in which he declared his intention to end his life; a search was begun then, but in spite of the zeal deployed, had no result.”
At the factories, they were given an absolutely identical response. As for Karl, the Pole, he had returned to Warsaw.
“No matter!” said Escander. “One thing remains: Ménestin is alive, imprisoned, as he says, aboard one of their aerobagnes, and we’re carrying away tangible proofs that everything he recounted in his manuscript is accurate.”
They rejoined Alexis at the hotel. It was about five o’clock; the worthy fellow seemed anxious, and he drew Escander into a corner.
“Boss,” she said, “I’m worried. Since we got back people have been prowling around us. There might be a squabble before long.”
“So?”
“So I think that as soon as the demoiselle has had a rest, we’d better go.”
They no longer had anything useful to do in Neustadt, for Escander was convinced that they would learn nothing more by staying longer, so he consent to the departure. When consulted, Mathilde declared that she was ready.
The three young people set out, and reached the landing-ground rapidly, but without affectation.
No one attempted to prevent Alexis opening the hangar; two or three men, probably wardens or mechanics, watched them from a distance. He drew out his apparatus, which he inspected rapidly. Mathilde and Escander installed themselves within.
Certain that his apparatus was in good condition, Alexis was also about to take his place when two policemen ran up, out of breath.
“Get down! Get down!”
Escander allowed them to approach.
“What do you want?” he demanded.
“You haf a votogravic abbaratus’ It is vorbidden. Must gome to the bolice station to open it. Come! All come!”
“Don’t move, Boss, or we’re cooked!” shouted Alexis.
The policeman turn to Alexis. The young aviator possessed all of Carpentier’s101 best punches, and knew how to make use of them. With a triumphant straight right he sent the man flying three paces, got rid of his acolyte, who attempted to intervene, with a left hook neatly placed on the jaw, leapt into the apparatus and set it in motion.
The docile bird gathered speed and suddenly reared up, rising rapidly. Gunshots rang out behind it.
XII. Escander Has Recourse to Powerful Means
The investigation undertaken in Neustadt satisfied the editor on chief of Le Monde in every respect. As soon as he had assimilated the results he telephoned the Minister of the Interior to bring him up to date. The Minister recognized that Escander’s discoveries confirmed Paul Ménestin’s story, but asked the newspaper to limit itself, for the time being, to publishing the engineer’s manuscript, without taking a hand in the affair. France was anxious about the gravity of certain events that were happening beyond her frontiers; it was necessary not to add to the excitement of public opinion.
Very worried, Sauter summoned Escander.
“They’re gagging us, my dear friend,” he said. “We can continue to publish the manuscript, but without commentary. Our readers will end up believing that it’s a romance.”
“However,” said the reporter, “Ménestin exists, and the clandestine factories too, and the author of the manuscript really is aboard German aerobagne 32.”
“That’s my conviction, but it’s necessary to wait. That’s the order.”
“It’s humiliating.”
“Yes, but what can we do?”
“Will you give me three days, my dear Boss? In three days, I’ll submit a project to you that I’ve been studying for some time.”
“Agreed—I’ll give you three days.”
“I also need Alexis, the pilot who took us to Neustadt, and a substantial amount of money.”
“How much?”
“Maybe a hundred thousand.”
“Damn!”
“I also need airplane 21.”
“What are you cooking up, Escander?”
“I want to bring you Paul Ménestin, within a month.”
“Escander, if you can do that...”
“You’ll get me the Légion d’honneur—thanks, but I’ve already got it. No, Boss; if I succeed, you’ll publish at your expense my history of the last Valois-Angoulêmes.”
“Agreed—a luxury edition, with reproductions of iconographic documents—but I want to know...”
“You shall—but whether I succeed or not, Le Monde will never have had, and never will have, a story as sensational to announce in headlines.”
When he left Sauter, Escander went up to the platform on top of the building, from which the machines of its aviation service took off.
“Alexis! Where’s Alexis?”
“He’s about to leave, Monsieur.”
“No, he isn’t leaving. Tell him to come. At the same time, I’m informing you that airplane 21 bas been mobilized for my service. Get a move on—at the trot!”
After having invited Alexis to dinner in a small restaurant on the left bank, Escander took him along the quais.
“Tell me, Alexis,” the journalist said, when they had reached a deserted spot, “do you know twenty resolute fellows who’d like to earn a round sum by taking a few risks?”
“Do I! Heaps—and first class fellows, you know, who won’t back away from a dust-up—as long as everything’s proper, of course.”
“I’m incapable of proposing anything else to you; there’ll be fighting, but with Boches.”
“In that case, I know thousands of them.”
“Twenty or twenty-five will suffice…for a month, all expenses paid, fifty francs a day and good work to be done…but it’ll be hard.”
“Pardon me, Monsieur Escander, but has it to do with the business at Neustadt?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s all right—and those I bring with me, I’ll answer for as for myself.”
“But once again, it’ll be necessary to fight, to stick it out…perhaps to the death.”
“They’ll stick it out.”
For an hour, Escander talked. Alexis listened in a religious silence; then, gained by a joyous enthusiasm, he destroyed one by one all the objections that the reporter raised before him.
It was very late when the two men separated, with a handshake.
The next day, at three o’clock, the reporter presented himself at the home of Mademoiselle Régis. Without concealing any of the audacity of his project, he explained all its details. When the two young people separated, it was agreed that the young woman would agree to take a short sea cruise.
Escander then had himself taken to the Boulevard Ney, where he had no difficulty finding the garage that Alexis had designated as a meeting place. The pilot was waiting for him on the threshold.
“Are they here?” was the reporter’s first question.
“All present and correct—twenty-five, as you requested, the best there are when cunning’s required.”
They went into the hangar. As they came in the twenty-five men who were waiting for them formed a line, and all conversations ceased. Escander contemplated them momentarily in silence, and then, with his hands in his pockets, he spoke to them.
“M
y friends, Alexis has told you that I need twenty-five brave lads, resolute and devoted. The work for which you’re being hired is important, dangerous but perfectly honorable. There will doubtless be blows to deliver and receive. If you’re killed, your heirs will receive a sum of ten thousand francs; the wounded will be cared for, and pensioned if necessary. There will, of course, be a contract to sign. Those who want to come with us raise our hands.”
All the hands went up.
“In a few days,” said Escander, a train will take you to Le Havre, but between now and then, I need you to be discreet. If you have curious wives, tell them that you’ve enrolled to search for treasure buried at sea. That’s all. Au revoir!”
Saluted by acclamations, Escander took Alexis away to ask him for additional information about the personnel he had recruited. The majority of the men lived by various industries on the margins of society—handymen, street-hawkers, improvised mechanics—but they all had clean records, legally speaking, and were relatively scrupulous in their honesty. Escander declared himself satisfied. Alexis was to keep in constant contact with them and make sure that they were kept in hand.
From the Boulevard Ney the journalist went to Le Monde. When he came out again, he had carte blanche, and Sauter was rubbing his hands joyfully.
Escander’s day was not yet finished. At six o’clock, in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, he rang the doorbell of the great chocolatier Laverdy, whose friend he had been since their schooldays. Laverdy had only had the difficulty of coming into the world to find a fortune of forty millions in his cradle and a prosperous business that he allowed hands more expert than his own to manage. He was a charming fellow, but he had one grave fault: he was perpetually bored, no matter what. Only Escander amused him, precisely because he did not take the ennui of the idle man seriously. He welcomed the journalist with open arms.
“You’re going to have dinner with me, and then you’ll take me to see something capable of amusing me.”
The Mirror of Present Events Page 31
