CHAPTER EIGHT
THE DEVIL'S POST-OFFICE
Of all these events the public knew only of the attempted suicide of Mme.Fauville, the capture and escape of Gaston Sauverand, the murder of ChiefInspector Ancenis, and the discovery of a letter written by HippolyteFauville. This was enough, however, to reawaken their curiosity, as theywere already singularly puzzled by the Mornington case and took thegreatest interest in all the movements, however slight, of the mysteriousDon Luis Perenna, whom they insisted on confusing with Arsene Lupin.
He was, of course, credited with the brief capture of the man with theebony walking-stick. It was also known that he had saved the life of thePrefect of Police, and that, finally, having at his own request spent thenight in the house on the Boulevard Suchet, he had become the recipientof Hippolyte Fauville's famous letter. And all this added immensely tothe excitement of the aforesaid public.
But how much more complicated and disconcerting were the problems set toDon Luis Perenna himself! Not to mention the denunciation in theanonymous article, there had been, in the short space of forty-eighthours, no fewer than four separate attempts to kill him: by the ironcurtain, by poison, by the shooting on the Boulevard Suchet, and by thedeliberately prepared motor accident.
Florence's share in this series of attempts was not to be denied. And,now, behold her relations with the Fauvilles' murderers duly establishedby the little note found in the eighth volume of Shakespeare's plays,while two more deaths were added to the melancholy list: the deaths ofChief Inspector Ancenis and of the chauffeur. How to describe and how toexplain the part played, in the midst of all these catastrophes, by thatenigmatical girl?
Strangely enough, life went on as usual at the house in the Place duPalais-Bourbon, as though nothing out of the way had happened there.Every morning Florence Levasseur sorted Don Luis's post in his presenceand read out the newspaper articles referring to himself or bearing uponthe Mornington case.
Not a single allusion was made to the fierce fight that had been wagedagainst him for two days. It was as though a truce had been proclaimedbetween them; and the enemy appeared to have ceased his attacks for themoment. Don Luis felt easy, out of the reach of danger; and he talked tothe girl with an indifferent air, as he might have talked to anybody.
But with what a feverish interest he studied her unobserved! Hewatched the expression of her face, at once calm and eager, and apainful sensitiveness which showed under the placid mask and which,difficult to control, revealed itself in the frequent quivering of thelips and nostrils.
"Who are you? Who are you?" he felt inclined to exclaim. "Will nothingcontent you, you she-devil, but to deal out murder all round? And do youwant my death also, in order to attain your object? Where do you comefrom and where are you making for?"
On reflection, he was convinced of a certainty that solved a problemwhich had preoccupied him for a long time--namely, the mysteriousconnection between his own presence in the mansion in the Place duPalais-Bourbon and the presence of a woman who was manifestly wreakingher hatred on him.
He now understood that he had not bought the house by accident. In makingthe purchase he had been persuaded by an anonymous offer that reached himin the form of a typewritten prospectus. Whence did this offer come, ifnot from Florence, who wished to have him near her in order to spy uponhim and wage war upon him?
"Yes," he thought, "that is where the truth lies. As the possible heirof Cosmo Mornington and a prominent figure in the case, I am the enemy,and they are trying to do away with me as they did with the others. Andit is Florence who is acting against me. And it is she who hascommitted murder.
"Everything tells against her; nothing speaks in her defence. Herinnocent eyes? The accent of sincerity in her voice? Her serene dignity?And then? Yes, what then? Have I never seen women with that frank lookwho have committed murder for no reason, almost for pleasure's sake?"
He started with terror at the memory of Dolores Kesselbach. What was itthat made him connect these two women at every moment in his mind? Hehad loved one of them, that monster Dolores, and had strangled her withhis own hands. Was fate now leading him toward a like love and asimilar murder?
When Florence left him he would experience a sense of satisfaction andbreathe more easily, as though released from an oppressive weight, but hewould run to the window and see her crossing the courtyard and be stillwaiting when the girl whose scented breath he had felt upon his facepassed to and fro.
One morning she said to him:
"The papers say that it will be to-night."
"To-night?"
"Yes," she said, showing him an article in one of the newspapers."This is the twenty-fifth; and, according to the information of thepolice, supplied, they say, by you, there should be a letter deliveredin the house on the Boulevard Suchet every tenth day, and the house isto be destroyed by an explosion on the day when the fifth and lastletter appears."
Was she defying him? Did she wish to make him understand that, whateverhappened, whatever the obstacles, the letters would appear, thosemysterious letters prophesied on the list which he had found in theeighth volume of Shakespeare's plays?
He looked at her steadily. She did not flinch. He answered:
"Yes, this is the night. I shall be there. Nothing in the world willprevent me."
She was on the point of replying, but once more controlled her feelings.
That day Don Luis was on his guard. He lunched and dined out and arrangedwith Mazeroux to have the Place du Palais-Bourbon watched.
Mlle. Levasseur did not leave the house during the afternoon. In theevening Don Luis ordered Mazeroux's men to follow any one who might goout at that time.
At ten o'clock the sergeant joined Don Luis in Hippolyte Fauville'sworkroom. Deputy Chief Detective Weber and two plain-clothesmenwere with him.
Don Luis took Mazeroux aside:
"They distrust me. Own up to it."
"No. As long as M. Desmalions is there, they can do nothing against you.Only, M. Weber maintains--and he is not the only one--that you fake upall these occurrences yourself."
"With what object?"
"With the object of furnishing proof against Marie Fauville and gettingher condemned. So I asked for the attendance of the deputy chief and twomen. There will be four of us to bear witness to your honesty."
They all took up their posts. Two detectives were to sit up in turns.
This time, after making a minute search of the little room in whichFauville's son used to sleep, they locked and bolted the doors andshutters. At eleven o'clock they switched off the electric chandelier.
Don Luis and Weber hardly slept at all.
The night passed without incident of any kind.
But, at seven o'clock, when the shutters were opened, they saw that therewas a letter on the table. Just as on the last occasion, there was aletter on the table!
When the first moment of stupefaction was over, the deputy chief tookthe letter. His orders were not to read it and not to let any oneelse read it.
Here is the letter, published by the newspapers, which also published thedeclarations of the experts certifying that the handwriting was HippolyteFauville's:
"I have seen him! You understand, don't you, my dear friend? I have seenhim! He was walking along a path in the Bois, with his coat collar turnedup and his hat pulled over his ears. I don't think that he saw me. It wasalmost dark. But I knew him at once. I knew the silver handle of hisebony stick. It was he beyond a doubt, the scoundrel!
"So he is in Paris, in spite of his promise. Gaston Sauverand is inParis! Do you understand the terrible significance of that fact? If he isin Paris, it means that he intends to act. If he is in Paris, it meanscertain death to me. Oh, the harm which I shall have suffered at thatman's hands! He has already robbed me of my happiness; and now he wantsmy life. I am terrified."
So Fauville knew that the man with the ebony walking-stick, that GastonSauverand, was designing to kill him. Fauville declared it mostpositively, by evidence wri
tten in his own hand; and the letter,moreover, corroborating the words that had escaped Gaston Sauverand athis arrest, showed that the two men had at one time had relations witheach other, that they were no longer friends, and that Gaston Sauverandhad promised never to come to Paris.
A little light was therefore being shed on the darkness of the Morningtoncase. But, on the other hand, how inconceivable was the mystery of thatletter found on the table in the workroom!
Five men had kept watch, five of the smartest men obtainable; and yet, onthat night, as on the night of the fifteenth of April, an unknown handhad delivered the letter in a room with barricaded doors and windows,without their hearing a sound or discovering any signs that thefastenings of the doors or windows had been tampered with.
The theory of a secret outlet was at once raised, but had to beabandoned after a careful examination of the walls and after aninterview with the contractor who had built the house, from Fauville'sown plans, some years ago.
It is unnecessary once more to recall what I may describe as the flurryof the public. The deed, in the circumstances, assumed the appearance ofa sleight-of-hand trick. People felt tempted to look upon it as therecreation of some wonderfully skilful conjurer rather than as the act ofa person employing unknown methods.
Nevertheless, Don Luis Perenna's intelligence was justified at allpoints, for the expected incident had taken place on the twenty-fifth ofApril, as on the fifteenth. Would the series be continued on the fifth ofMay? No one doubted it, because Don Luis had said so and becauseeverybody felt that Don Luis could not be mistaken. All through the nightof the fifth of May there was a crowd on the Boulevard Suchet; andquidnuncs and night birds of every kind came trooping up to hear thelatest news.
The Prefect of Police, greatly impressed by the first two miracles, haddetermined to see the next one for himself, and was present in person onthe third night.
He came accompanied by several inspectors, whom he left in the garden, inthe passage, and in the attic on the upper story. He himself took up hispost on the ground floor with Weber, Mazeroux, and Don Luis Perenna.
Their expectations were disappointed; and this was M. Desmalions's fault.In spite of the express opinion of Don Luis, who deprecated theexperiment as useless, the Prefect had decided not to turn off theelectric light, so that he might see if the light would prevent themiracle. Under these conditions no letter could appear, and no letter didappear. The miracle, whether a conjuring trick or a criminal's device,needed the kindly aid of the darkness.
There were therefore ten days lost, always presuming that the diabolicalpostman would dare to repeat his attempt and produce the thirdmysterious letter.
* * * * *
On the fifteenth of May the wait was renewed, while the same crowdgathered outside, an anxious, breathless crowd, stirred by the leastsound and keeping an impressive silence, with eyes gazing upon theFauvilles' house.
This time the light was put out, but the Prefect of Police kept his handon the electric switch. Ten times, twenty times, he unexpectedly turnedon the light. There was nothing on the table. What had aroused hisattention was the creaking of a piece of furniture or a movement made byone of the men with him.
Suddenly they all uttered an exclamation. Something unusual, a rustlingnoise, had interrupted the silence.
M. Desmalions at once switched on the light. He gave a cry. A letter laynot on the table, but beside it, on the floor, on the carpet.
Mazeroux made the sign of the cross. The inspectors were as pale asdeath.
M. Desmalions looked at Don Luis, who nodded his head without a word.
They inspected the condition of the locks and bolts. Nothing had moved.
That day again, the contents of the letter made some amends for thereally extraordinary manner of its delivery. It completely dispelledall the doubts that still enshrouded the double murder on theBoulevard Suchet.
Again signed by the engineer, written throughout by himself, on theeighth of February, with no visible address, it said:
"No, my dear friend, I will not allow myself to be killed like a sheepled to the slaughter. I shall defend myself, I shall fight to the lastmoment. Things have changed lately. I have proofs now, undeniable proofs.I possess letters that have passed between them. And I know that theystill love each other as they did at the start, that they want to marry,and that they will let nothing stand in their way. It is written,understand what I say, it is written in Marie's own hand; 'Have patience,my own Gaston. My courage increases day by day. So much the worse for himwho stands between us. He shall disappear.'
"My dear friend, if I succumb in the struggle you will find those letters(and all the evidence which I have collected against the wretchedcreature) in the safe hidden behind the small glass case: Then revengeme. Au revoir. Perhaps good-bye."
Thus ran the third missive. Hippolyte Fauville from his grave named andaccused his guilty wife. From his grave he supplied the solution to theriddle and explained the reason why the crimes had been committed: MarieFauville and Gaston Sauverand were lovers.
Certainly they knew of the existence of Cosmo Mornington's will, for theyhad begun by doing away with Cosmo Mornington; and their eagerness tocome into the enormous fortune had hastened the catastrophe. But thefirst idea of the murder rose from an older and deep-rooted passion:Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand were lovers.
One problem remained to be solved: who was the unknown correspondent towhom Hippolyte Fauville had bequeathed the task of avenging his murder,and who, instead of simply handing over the letters to the police, wasexercising his ingenuity to deliver them by means of the mostMachiavellian contrivances? Was it to his interest also to remain in thebackground?
To all these questions Marie Fauville replied in the most unexpectedmanner, though it was one that fully accorded with her threats. A weeklater, after a long cross-examination at which she was pressed for thename of her husband's old friend and at which she maintained the moststubborn silence, together with a sort of stupid inertia, she returned toher cell in the evening and opened the veins of her wrist with a piece ofglass which she had managed to hide.
Don Luis heard the news from Mazeroux, who came to tell him of itbefore eight o'clock the next morning, just as he was getting out ofbed. The sergeant had a travelling bag in his hand and was on his wayto catch a train.
Don Luis was greatly upset.
"Is she dead?" he exclaimed.
"No. It seems that she has had one more let-off. But what's the good?"
"How do you mean, what's the good?"
"She'll do it again, of course. She's set her mind upon it. And, one dayor another--"
"Did she volunteer no confession, this time either, before making theattempt on her life?"
"No. She wrote a few words on a scrap of paper, saying that, on thinkingit over, she advised us to ask a certain M. Langernault about themysterious letters. He was the only friend that she had known her husbandto possess, or at any rate the only one whom he would have called, 'Mydear fellow,' or, 'My dear friend,' This M. Langernault could do no morethan prove her innocence and explain the terrible misunderstanding ofwhich she was the victim."
"But," said Don Luis, "if there is any one to prove her innocence, whydoes she begin by opening her veins?"
"She doesn't care, she says. Her life is done for; and what she wants isrest and death."
"Rest? Rest? There are other ways in which she can find it besides indeath. If the discovery of the truth is to spell her safety, perhaps thetruth is not impossible to discover."
"What are you saying, Chief? Have you guessed anything? Are you beginningto understand?"
"Yes, very vaguely, but, all the same, the really unnatural accuracy ofthose letters just seems to me a sign--"
He reflected for a moment and continued:
"Have they reexamined the erased addresses of the three letters?"
"Yes; and they managed to make out the name of Langernault."
"Where does this L
angernault live?"
"According to Mme. Fauville, at the village of Damigni, in the Orme."
"Have they deciphered the word Damigni on one of the letters?"
"No, but they have the name of the nearest town."
"What town is that?"
"Alencon."
"And is that where you're going?"
"Yes, the Prefect of Police told me to go straightaway. I shall take thetrain at the Invalides."
"You mean you will come with me in my motor."
"Eh?"
"We will both of us go, my lad. I want to be doing something; theatmosphere of this house is deadly for me."
"What are you talking about, Chief?"
"Nothing. I know."
Half an hour later they were flying along the Versailles Road. Perennahimself was driving his open car and driving it in such a way thatMazeroux, almost stifling, kept blurting out, at intervals:
"Lord, what a pace! Dash it all, how you're letting her go, Chief! Aren'tyou afraid of a smash? Remember the other day--"
They reached Alencon in time for lunch. When they had done, they went tothe chief post-office. Nobody knew the name of Langernault there.Besides, Damigni had its own post-office, though the presumption was thatM. Langernault had his letters addressed _poste restante_ at Alencon.
Don Luis and Mazeroux went on to the village of Damigni. Here again thepostmaster knew no one of the name of Langernault; and this in spite ofthe fact that Damigni contained only about a thousand inhabitants.
"Let's go and call on the mayor," said Perenna.
At the mayor's Mazeroux stated who he was and mentioned the object of hisvisit. The mayor nodded his head.
"Old Langernault? I should think so. A decent fellow: used to run abusiness in the town."
"And accustomed, I suppose, to fetch his letters at Alencon post-office?"
"That's it, every day, for the sake of the walk."
"And his house?"
"Is at the end of the village. You passed it as you came along."
"Can we see it?"
"Well, of course ... only--"
"Perhaps he's not at home?"
"Certainly not! The poor, dear man hasn't even set foot in the housesince he left it the last time, four years ago!"
"How is that?"
"Why, he's been dead these four years!"
Don Luis and Mazeroux exchanged a glance of amazement.
"So he's dead?" said Don Luis.
"Yes, a gunshot."
"What's that!" cried Perenna. "Was he murdered?"
"No, no. They thought so at first, when they picked him up on the floorof his room; but the inquest proved that it was an accident. He wascleaning his gun, and it went off and sent a load of shot into hisstomach. All the same, we thought it very queer in the village. DaddyLangernault, an old hunter before the Lord, was not the man to commit anact of carelessness."
"Had he money?"
"Yes; and that's just what clinched the matter: they couldn't find apenny of it!"
Don Luis remained thinking for some time and then asked:
"Did he leave any children, any relations of the same name?"
"Nobody, not even a cousin. The proof is that his property--it's calledthe Old Castle, because of the ruins on it--has reverted to the State.The authorities have had the doors of the house sealed up, and locked thegate of the park. They are waiting for the legal period to expire inorder to take possession."
"And don't sightseers go walking in the park, in spite of the walls?"
"Not they. In the first place, the walls are very high. And then--andthen the Old Castle has had a bad reputation in the neighbourhood eversince I can remember. There has always been a talk of ghosts: a pack ofsilly tales. But still--"
Perenna and his companion could not get over their surprise.
"This is a funny affair," exclaimed Don Luis, when they had left themayor's. "Here we have Fauville writing his letters to a dead man--and toa dead man, by the way, who looks to me very much as if he had beenmurdered."
"Some one must have intercepted the letters."
"Obviously. But that does not do away with the fact that he wrote them toa dead man and made his confidences to a dead man and told him of hiswife's criminal intentions."
Mazeroux was silent. He, too, seemed greatly perplexed.
They spent part of the afternoon in asking about old Langernault'shabits, hoping to receive some useful clue from the people who had knownhim. But their efforts led to nothing.
At six o'clock, as they were about to start, Don Luis found that the carhad run out of petrol and sent Mazeroux in a trap to the outskirts ofAlencon to fetch some. He employed the delay in going to look at the OldCastle outside the village.
He had to follow a hedged road leading to an open space, planted withlime trees, where a massive wooden gate stood in the middle of a wall.The gate was locked. Don Luis walked along the wall, which was, in fact,very high and presented no opening. Nevertheless, he managed to climbover by means of the branches of a tree.
The park consisted of unkept lawns, overgrown with large wild flowers,and grass-covered avenues leading on the right to a distant mound,thickly dotted with ruins, and, on the left, to a small, tumbledown housewith ill-fitting shutters.
He was turning in this direction, when he was much surprised to perceivefresh footprints on a border which had been soaked with the recent rain.And he could see that these footprints had been made by a woman's boots,a pair of elegant and dainty boots.
"Who the devil comes walking here?" he thought.
He found more footprints a little farther, on another border which theowner of the boots had crossed, and they led him away from the house,toward a series of clumps of trees where he saw them twice more. Then helost sight of them for good.
He was standing near a large, half-ruined barn, built against a very tallbank. Its worm-eaten doors seemed merely balanced on their hinges. Hewent up and looked through a crack in the wood. Inside the windowlessbarn was in semi-darkness, for but little light came through the openingsstopped up with straw, especially as the day was beginning to wane. Hewas able to distinguish a heap of barrels, broken wine-presses, oldploughs, and scrap-iron of all kinds.
"This is certainly not where my fair stroller turned her steps," thoughtDon Luis. "Let's look somewhere else."
Nevertheless, he did not move. He had noticed a noise in the barn.
He listened and heard nothing. But as he wanted to get to the bottom ofthings he forced out a couple of planks with his shoulder and stepped in.
The breach which he had thus contrived admitted a little light. He couldsee enough to make his way between two casks, over some broken windowframes, to an empty space on the far side.
His eyes grew accustomed to the darkness as he went on. For all that, heknocked his head against something which he had not perceived, somethinghanging up above, something rather hard which, when set in motion, swungto and fro with a curious grating sound.
It was too dark to see. Don Luis took an electric lantern from his pocketand pressed the spring.
"Damn it all!" he swore, falling back aghast.
Above him hung a skeleton!
And the next moment he uttered another oath. A second skeleton hungbeside the first!
They were both fastened by stout ropes to rings fixed in the rafters ofthe barn. Their heads dangled from the slip-knots. The one against whichPerenna had struck was still moving slightly and the bones clickedtogether with a gruesome sound.
He dragged forward a rickety table, propped it up as best he could, andclimbed onto it to examine the two skeletons more closely. They wereturned toward each other, face to face. The first was considerably biggerthan the second. They were obviously the skeletons of a man and a woman.Even when they were not moved by a jolt of any kind, the wind blowingthrough the crevices in the barn set them lightly swinging to and fro, ina sort of very slow, rhythmical dance.
But what perhaps was most impressive in this ghastly spect
acle was thefact that each of the skeletons, though deprived of every rag ofclothing, still wore a gold ring, too wide now that the flesh haddisappeared, but held, as in hooks, by the bent joints of the fingers.
He slipped off the rings with a shiver of disgust, and found that theywere wedding rings. Each bore a date inside, the same date, 12 August,1887, and two names: "Alfred--Victorine."
"Husband and wife," he murmured. "Is it a double suicide? Or a murder?But how is it possible that the two skeletons have not yet beendiscovered? Can one conceive that they have been here since the death ofold Langernault, since the government has taken possession of the estateand made it impossible for anybody to walk in?"
He paused to reflect.
"Anybody? I don't know about that, considering that I saw footprints inthe garden, and that a woman has been there this very day!"
The thought of the unknown visitor engrossed him once more, and he gotdown from the table. In spite of the noise which he had heard, it washardly to be supposed that she had entered the barn. And, after a fewminutes' search, he was about to go out, when there came, from the left,a clash of things falling about and some hoops dropped to the ground notfar from where he stood.
They came from above, from a loft likewise crammed with various objectsand implements and reached by a ladder. Was he to believe that thevisitor, surprised by his arrival, had taken refuge in that hiding-placeand made a movement that caused the fall of the hoops?
Don Luis placed his electric lantern on a cask in such a way as to sendthe light right up to the loft. Seeing nothing suspicious, nothing but anarsenal of old pickaxes, rakes, and disused scythes, he attributed whathad happened so some animal, to some stray cat; and, to make sure, hewalked quickly to the ladder and went up.
Suddenly, at the very moment when he reached the level of the floor,there was a fresh noise, a fresh clatter of things falling: and a formrose from the heap of rubbish with a terrible gesture.
It was swift as lightning. Don Luis saw the great blade of a scythecleaving the air at the height of his head. Had he hesitated for asecond, for the tenth of a second, the awful weapon would have beheadedhim. As it was, he just had time to flatten himself against the ladder.The scythe whistled past him, grazing his jacket. He slid down to thefloor below.
But he had seen.
He had seen the dreadful face of Gaston Sauverand, and, behind the man ofthe ebony walking-stick, wan and livid in the rays of the electric light,the distorted features of Florence Levasseur!