The Supreme Progress

by Brian Stableford

  This discovery was so unexpected that the two young men looked at it open-mouthed. Their astonishment did not last long, however; Balthazar remembered very quickly, and explained that the opening, closed off and forgotten for a long time, had once served as a primitive bull’s-eye window to illuminate the next room, which had then only been a dressing-room. Later, a partial reconstruction of the house had permitted Monsieur Van der Lys to transform the dressing-room into a bedroom, lighting it by means of a window overlooking the street, and to get rid of the henceforth-unnecessary bull’s-eye by covering it with on both sides by canvas and wallpaper similar to that of the two rooms on either side.

  Monsieur Tricamp pointed out that the square piece of paper previously stuck on that side had been detached with extreme care, which implied that the person responsible intended to stick it back later. By raising himself up slightly, he succeeded in sliding his hand through the opening and assuring himself that the same work had been carried out on the other side, on the paper in the neighboring room, with the same precaution and the same skill, evidently with the same aim.

  There was no more doubt, now, that it was necessary to assume that this was the thief’s means of introduction, the bull’s-eye being large enough to let someone through. Getting down from his pedestal, Monsieur Tricamp set about explaining everything that the malefactor had done from his arrival to his departure, with extreme confidence.

  “The knife,” he said, “placed at an equal distance from the writing desk and the bull’s-eye, is evidently a step that he prepared for the return ascent, more difficult than the descent. The iron bell-wire, broken from the start, since it was within range of his hand, enabled the dangling end to serve him as a means of support, not on the side where it would have rung the bell, but on the other, where it could only shake the pull—and it is, in fact, the fragment of wire attached to the pull that seems to be the only one twisted by that usage.

  “As for the files fallen on to the floor, whose pillage is unjustified, it’s easy to understand that our thief, while climbing up to get out, made a false step and lost his balance—at which he reached out for the first object within range. The filing-cabinet being higher up than the writing-desk, answered this need precisely. While the right foot reached for the knife, the left foot, swinging in empty space, found momentary support on the filing-cabinet, which swayed, and two files slipped on to the floor—the two uppermost files, as you can see: the ones that would naturally fall first. After which, rebalanced by that slight support, he was able to reach the bull’s-eye without difficulty—and the filing-cabinet, freed from the impulse, naturally regained its equilibrium!

  “I attribute to the disturbance caused by the fall the thief’s negligence in sticking back the pieces of wallpaper that he had detached so carefully, as if he had not planned to return them to their original state. Does all that not seem to you to be reasonable and evident, as clear as day?”

  Balthazar and Cornelius were not listening to this ingenious speech without a certain admiration, but the former was not a man to remain spellbound for long. He was no longer thinking about anything but his locket. Certain now of the fashion by which the malefactor had got in, the only thing he wanted to know henceforth was how he had got out…

  “Patience,” Monsieur Tricamp replied, savoring his victory with all the pride of triumph. “Now we know what the thief did, let us think about his temperament.”

  “His temperament!” cried Balthazar. “We don’t have time…”

  “Pardon me,” Tricamp riposted, “but there’s nothing better we can do—and Monsieur, who is a scientist, will understand that immediately. The application of physiological knowledge to inquests, enquiries and judiciary hearings is now an accomplished fact, Monsieur, which has transformed the empiricism of the old routine from top to bottom.”

  “But while you’re talking,” said Balthazar, “my thief is getting away!”

  “Let him,” replied Monsieur Tricamp. “We shall catch up with him. As I was saying, you cannot get back to the source of a crime if you willingly forsake the study of the characteristics by which the criminal identifies, and, in a sense, denounces himself.

  “And what characteristic, what badge, what more infallible trademark is there than that of temperament, which is entirely revealed in the nuances of the operation? Nothing bears less resemblance to one theft than another theft, or to one murder than another. In the fashion in which the crime has been committed, in the varying degrees of cleverness, talent, brutality and propriety that preside over his accomplishment, be sure that the author signs his name in full. It only remains to decipher the signature.

  “Thus, yesterday morning, of two servants equally suspected of having stolen a shawl from their mistress, I was able to distinguish the guilty one at first glance. The thief had a choice between two cashmeres, one blue and the other yellow, and had taken the blue. One of the servants was blonde and the other brunette; I was sure of not being mistaken in arresting the blonde—the brunette would obviously have chosen the yellow shawl!”

  “That’s admirable,” said Cornelius.

  “Well,” Balthazar added, “tell me the name of my thief—and quickly, for I have a fever…”

  “I can’t tell you the name immediately,” Monsieur Tricamp went on, “but what I can affirm right away is that the guilty party is a beginner. The skill with which the paper was detached from the wall was able to deceive our faculties momentarily, but paper that has dried in place for five or six years comes unstuck of its own accord so easily that there’s no great talent there. The opening was ready-made, so the merit lay in its discovery; and again, the sight of the paper offered a more-than-sufficient clue. I’ve nothing to say about that portfolio so carelessly emptied, nor the desk forced in a brutal and savage fashion. All that makes one shrug one’s shoulders; it’s graceless and tasteless work. Look at that lock hanging down—it’s lamentable! He hasn’t even disengaged the bolt from its socket. He must have the tools of a cobbler, and that’s unforgivable, now that English industry manufactures such light, delicate and convenient instruments for us! Oh, Messieurs, I can introduce you, of you wish, to artists who could force your writing-desks in such a way as to invite your admiration!”

  “He’s a novice, then?” said Cornelius.

  “Evidently…and a clodhopper too. A thief with a little self-respect doesn’t leave an apartment in this state of disorder; he puts more delicacy into it. Saunderson, whom we executed the other day, would have preferred to come back, in order to put everything back in place. There was an artist! I will add that the person can neither be very tall nor very robust. I need no more proof of that than the employment of that knife and the bell-wire, when a vigorous man of reasonable height would easily have been able to hoist himself up by the strength of his wrists alone. Moreover, a robust hand would have embedded the dagger with a single blow, whereas our thief had to strike several times to penetrate the partition wall—look at the very recent scratching at the end of the hilt.”

  “That’s true,” said Balthazar, dazzled by this visual perspicacity.

  “But what about the writing-desk, whose wood has been splintered?” Cornelius objected.

  “Why, Monsieur, that’s exactly where his weakness reveals itself!” exclaimed Tricamp. “True force is serene and calm, for it is sure of itself. It gives one blow of the fist, and one alone, to a round-topped writing-desk, which is only asking to spring open, and its springs open! Whereas this is the work of an impotent individual losing his head. The object resists; he strikes, lashing out this way and that; he reduces it to matchwood, splinters, a mess. No muscles or sinews! The work of a child, or a woman.”

  “A woman?” exclaimed Balthazar.

  “Since I arrived, Monsieur,” Tricamp replied, “I have not doubted it for a moment.” And, claiming one last prize, Tricamp added: “And, in sum, it’s a young woman, for she can climb, short, since she needs a ladder, brunette, for she’s bad-tempered, and familiar with
your habits, since she profited from a moment when you were out to act at leisure, and because she went straight to the drawer that contained the money, ignoring the others. In conclusion, if you have a young servant-girl, look no further—it’s her!”

  “Christiane!” exclaimed the two young men.

  “Ah—so there’s a Christiane,” said Monsieur Tricamp. “Well then, it’s Christiane!”

  VI

  Balthazar and Cornelius looked at one another, both very pale. Christiane! Pretty Christiane! Their Christiane, so good, so sweet…a thief! Get away! And yet, they remembered her origin and the manner in which she had entered the household. She was only a gypsy, after all…

  Balthazar fell into a chair like a drunk. As for Cornelius, it seemed to him that his heart had just been burned with a red-hot iron, and that he was about to die…

  “Let’s see this Christiane, them,” said Monsieur Tricamp, abruptly extracting them from their stupor. “Let’s go to her room!”

  “Her room,” Balthazar replied, trying to get up, “But that is her room!” And he pointed to the bull’s-eye.

  “And you didn’t guess the whole thing?” Monsieur Tricamp said, smiling.

  “But she must have heard us!” said Cornelius, speaking effortfully.

  Tricamp seized the lamp, went out rapidly, opened the door of the next room and went into Christiane’s bedroom, followed by the two young men.

  The room was empty.

  All three of them uttered the same cry: “She’s run away!”

  Monsieur Tricamp assured himself with a single sweep of the hand that the bed was not unmade, and, simultaneously, that nothing was hidden in the mattress or the bolster. “She hasn’t even been to bed,” he said.

  At the same moment, they heard a sound in the hallway. The drawing-room door opened abruptly, and the policeman placed on watch by Tricamp came in, pushing Christiane in front of him. She seemed more surprised than frightened.

  “Monsieur Tricamp,” said the policeman, “this young woman was about to go out, and I arrested her as she was drawing the bolts.”

  Christiane looked at them all with an astonishment so natural that anyone would have been taken in by it…except for Monsieur Tricamp.

  “But what do you want with me?” she said to the policeman who was closing the door behind her. “Monsieur Balthazar, tell him who I am.”

  “Where have you come from?” asked Balthazar.

  “Upstairs,” she replied. “Gudule was scared by the thunder; as it was still rumbling when she went up to bed, she begged me to keep her company, and I went to sleep in an armchair in her room. I woke up, saw that the weather was fine again, and came down to go to bed. I was about to make sure that I hadn’t forgotten to close the bolts when this gentleman arrested me—and he gave me a fine scare!”

  “You’re lying,” Monsieur Tricamp replied, abruptly. “You were about to draw the bolts in order to go out, and you didn’t go to bed in order not to have the trouble of getting dressed again, and to make it easier to keep a lookout for the moment to escape.”

  Christiane looked at him with the most naïve expression. “Escape? She said. “What escape?”

  “Ah!” said Monsieur Tricamp. “We have aplomb!”

  “Come here,” said Balthazar, to whom this scene was giving a fever. “Come here, and I’ll show you…”

  He took Christiane by the arm and drew her into the study.

  “Divine Jesus!” cried the young woman, on the threshold. “Who’s done this?”

  The exclamation seemed so sincere that there was a momentary hesitation, but Monsieur Tricamp’s emotions did not last long. He drew Christiane to the writing-desk, showed her the broken lid, and said, brutally: “It was you!”

  “Me!” cried Christiane, who did not seem to know what was being said to her at first. She looked at Balthazar with a bewildered expression, then at Cornelius. Then, returning her gaze to the writing-desk, she perceived the empty drawer. Then, as if she suddenly understood, she uttered a heart-rending cry’ “Oh! You’re saying that I’ve stolen from you!”

  No one had the courage to reply. Christiane took a step toward Balthazar, who lowered his eyes before her gaze. Suddenly, she put her hand to her heart, as if she were choking. She tried to speak, and pronounced two or three incoherent swords, of which none could be distinguished save for: “Stolen…! Me…! Stolen…! Me…!” Then she collapsed like a dead woman.

  Cornelius ran to her, seized her in his arms and lifted her up. “No!” he cried. “No…it’s not possible! This child isn’t guilty.”

  He ran into the next room and lay the young woman down on the bed. Balthazar followed him. Excitedly. Monsieur Tricamp, still smiling, was about to go in behind them when one of his men held him back, tugging gently at his sleeve.

  “With your permission, Monsieur Tricamp,” the man said, “we already have some information about the young person.”

  “What information?” said Tricamp, lowering his voice.

  “While my comrade was on watch in the street, the baker who lives opposite him told him that this evening, slightly before the great thunderclap, he saw Mademoiselle Christiane at the window to the street—the drawing-room window. She slipped a package to a man with a cloak and a large hat…”

  “A package!” said Tricamp, excitedly. “Good…perfect! Take the name of the witness and keep watch on the vicinity of the house—but before that, go fetch me the housekeeper. Her bedroom’s on the first floor.”

  The policemen drew away, and Monsieur Tricamp went into Christiane’s bedroom.

  Christiane was lying on her bed, still unconscious, in spite of Cornelius’ efforts to revive her. Without pausing to look at her, Monsieur Tricamp examined the room, and immediately perceived the bull’s-eye opening into Balthazar’s study, as well as a piece of wallpaper, unstuck as cleverly as the one in the other room. He took a chair, set it on the marble top of the chest of drawers, and, measuring the distance, assured himself that the climb was quite easy by means of that improvised ladder. After a few minutes of inspection devoted to the chest itself, he came back to Balthazar, with a smile on his lips…

  “After all,” the latter said, sadly contemplating the chilly and motionless young woman, “what proof is there that it’s her?”

  “This!” replied Monsieur Tricamp, depositing in his hand one of the black pearls detached from the locket.

  “Where did you find it?” Balthazar asked.

  “There,” the police officer replied. He pointed at one of the drawers in the chest, filled with effects belonging to Christiane, which had been carelessly left open.

  Balthazar ran to the item of furniture, shook the dresses and underwear and tipped everything out of the drawer—and the others—but fruitlessly. The locket was not there.

  He looked around; the chest of drawers, the bed and a table without any drawers comprised all if Christiane’s furniture. There was no trunk or cupboard—nothing that might serve to conceal the stolen objects…

  Meanwhile, the young woman came round. She opened her eyes and saw all the people around her; then, remembering, she turned her head away and dissolved in tears, hiding her face in her pillow.

  “Ah!” murmured Monsieur Tricamp. “Tears…we’re going to confess.” He leaned over her very gently, and said, in his softest voice: “Come on, my child, a virtuous gesture! Admit that you succumbed to an evil impulse. My God, no one’s perfect! And we’ll treat your folly with the consideration due to a pretty girl. So we’re a trifle flirtatious, eh? We wanted to make ourselves beautiful? We wanted to please someone, then?”

  “Eh?” said Cornelius. “My God, Monsieur…”

  “Hush, young man!” Monsieur Tricamp replied, in a low voice. “Be sure that there’s an accomplice.” Leaning over Christiane again, he went on: “Isn’t it true, my dear, that it was you?”

  “Oh!” exclaimed Christiane, suddenly sitting up. “Kill me—but don’t repeat that!”

  The admonition was so s
harp that Monsieur Tricamp leapt backwards.

  “Monsieur,” Balthazar said to him, “have the generosity to leave us alone with this child. Your presence is irritating her, and we’ll get further with her than you.”

  Monsieur Tricamp bowed. “As you please, Monsieur—but be wary. What a villainess!”

  And he went out.

  Cornelius closed the door behind him, brusquely. Then the two young men went quietly to Christiane, who was sitting on her bed looking straight ahead, her eyes staring—without tears now—her entire body trembling with fever.

  “Come on, Christiane, my child,” Balthazar said, trying to take her hand, which was clenched on the bed. “We’re alone now, there’s no longer anyone here but friends. Would you like to say something?”

  “I don’t want to stay here!” said Christiane, in a dry, hoarse voice. “I want to go away. Let me go away!”

  Cornelius sat her down again, gently. “You can’t go out, Christiane. You can’t do it without answering us.”

  “Tell us the truth, I beg you, Christiane,” Balthazar continued. “The whole truth, my child. No one will do anything to you, I swear on my honor. I’ll forgive you, and no one will know…I swear to you, Christiane…before God! Come on—can’t you hear me?”

  “Yes!” replied Christiane, who was not listening. “Oh, I can’t cry anymore! Oh, if I could only cry! Make me cry!”

  Cornelius looked at his friend anxiously. He took the young woman’s burning hands and squeezed them gently in his own. “Christiane…my girl,” he said, with all possible tenderness, “there is mercy for everyone, and we love you too much to be pitiless. Listen to me, I beg you. Don’t you recognize me?”

  “Yes,” said Christiane, looking at him.

  His eyes became moist. “Well, I love you…you know that…I love you with all my heart!”