The Perfume of the Lady in Black

  And Mattoni? Was it possible that he had heard nothing? Was it possible that Mattoni, who was on guard at the gardener’s gatehouse, could have noticed nothing? And Bernier and his wife, what of them? I could not see them anywhere. The door of the Square Tower had remained open. Ah, the sweet murmur that issued forth from there! ‘Mother, mother, mother!’ I could hear her answering through her sobs: ‘My darling, my darling, my darling!’ They had not even thought to close Old Bob’s sitting room door behind them, for it was there that she had led him.

  They were alone together, clinging fondly to each other, and I could hear them repeating: ‘Mother!’ ‘My darling!’ Then they asked each other foolish questions, said silly things without rhyme or reason. ‘You’re not dead then?’ Of course she wasn’t, but it was enough to set them off crying again. Oh, how they must have hugged each other to make up for lost time! How he must have breathed his fill of the perfume of the Lady in Black! I could hear him saying: ‘You know, mother, it wasn’t I that was the thief.’ From the sound of his voice you might have thought he was still only nine years old. Poor Rouletabille. ‘No, my darling, I know you didn’t steal anything! My dearest, dearest!’ It wasn’t my fault if I overheard, but my soul was shaken by their words. A mother had found her little one!

  Where was Bernier? I stepped into the lodge on the left, for I wanted to know the reason for that cry and who had fired the shot.

  Madame Bernier was at the back of the room, which was lit by a small nightlight. She was crouching in an armchair. She must have been in bed when the shot was fired, and had sprung up hastily, throwing on a dressing-gown. I held the light near her face and noted the expression of fear upon it.

  ‘Where is Bernier?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s in there,’ she answered, trembling.

  ‘Where?’

  She did not answer. I started to cross the room, and stumbled. Stooping to see what had tripped me up, I noticed that the floor was covered with potatoes. Hadn’t Madame Bernier picked them up since Rouletabille emptied the sack? I stood up and, turning to the woman, asked:

  ‘What’s the meaning of all this? Who was responsible for the shot?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she answered.

  I heard the tower door close, and Bernier appeared at the entrance to the lodge.

  ‘Is that you, M. Sainclair?’

  ‘Bernier, what happened?

  ‘Nothing serious, M. Sainclair. Don’t be alarmed, nothing of any importance.’ But his voice sounded unnaturally loud and cheerful. ‘Just a little accident. M. Darzac’s revolver fell from the table and it went off. Madame was frightened and screamed. As the window of her room was open, she thought that you and M. Rouletabille must have heard something, so she came down at once to tell you it was all right.’

  ‘So M. Darzac has gone back to his room?’

  ‘He came in almost as soon as you left the tower, sir, and the shot went off almost immediately after he went into his room. It frightened me too! I rushed across the hall! M. Darzac opened the door to me himself. Luckily, nobody was wounded.’

  ‘So Madame Darzac went straight to her room after I left the tower?’

  ‘She did, sir. She heard M. Darzac come in and she followed him into their room. They went in together.’

  ‘Did M. Darzac remain in his room?’

  ‘Here he is!’

  I turned and saw Robert Darzac. Even in that dim light I could see that he was fearfully pale. He motioned to me to come closer, and I did so. He said:

  ‘Listen, Sainclair! Bernier must have told you about the accident. You needn’t mention it to anybody unless they ask you about it. The others may not have heard the shot. There’s no point frightening people, is there? Look, I have a personal favour to ask of you!’

  ‘You only have to ask, my friend,’ I replied. ‘You know that I am entirely at your service. If there’s anything I can do for you, tell me.’

  ‘Thank you. Can you just persuade Rouletabille to go to bed. When he is gone, my wife will be calmer and will go to bed too. We are all in need of rest and calm, Sainclair. We all need calm and silence.’

  ‘Very well. You can count on me,’ I said.

  I shook him cordially by the hand. I was convinced that something was being hidden from us, and that it was something extremely grave. He went back to his room, and I did not hesitate to seek out Rouletabille in Old Bob’s rooms. But on the threshold, I met the Lady in Black and her son coming out. They were both so silent, their manner towards each other was so strange, so incomprehensible to me, who, having overheard their confidences of a few moments before, was expecting something entirely different, that I stood staring at them foolishly. The haste with which Madame Darzac parted from her son at such a time, and the submissiveness with which Rouletabille accepted his dismissal, were a marvel to me. Mathilde kissed her son on the forehead, saying: ‘Goodbye, my child,’ in such a sad, solemn, emotionless voice, that it seemed to me I was listening to the last farewell of a dying woman.

  Rouletabille made no reply to his mother and hurried me away from the tower. He was trembling like a leaf.

  The Lady in Black herself closed the door of the Square Tower. I was certain that some extraordinary event was taking place inside that tower. I wasn’t at all satisfied with that story about an accident, and no doubt Rouletabille would have agreed with me if his heart and mind had not been so wholly upset by his conversation with his mother. But then, how did I know but that Rouletabille was of my opinion?

  We had no sooner left the Square Tower than I took Rouletabille by the hand. To begin with, I pushed him into the corner between the wall that joined the Square and the Round Tower. The young fellow, who had allowed himself to be led like a child, said in a low voice:

  ‘Sainclair, I promised my mother that I wouldn’t see anything, that I wouldn’t hear anything that goes on in the Square Tower tonight. It’s the first promise I have made to my mother, but I’ll risk my chance of salvation for her sake. I must look and I must listen!’

  We were standing near a window in which a light was still shining. It was a window in Old Bob’s sitting room and overlooked the sea. The fact that the window had been open was probably what had enabled us to hear the shot and the cry, notwithstanding the thickness of the tower walls. From our present position we could not see anything through the window, but we could hear, and that was better than nothing. The storm had passed, but the waves still beat against the rocks of the peninsula with such fury that it would have been impossible for any boat to approach. I don’t know what suggested the idea of a boat to me at the time, unless perhaps I thought I saw the shadow of one gliding over the water. However, that was probably only a product of my overwrought brain.

  We had been standing there motionless for about five minutes when we heard a sigh, a long, dreadful sigh! It was like an expiration, like the last breath of the dying, a muffled moan that floated out through the window and over our heads. Then silence, and then nothing more! No sound but the roaring of the sea, and suddenly the light in the window went out. The outline of the Square Tower was lost in the night. My friend and I held each other’s hands and stood motionless and dumb, awaiting events. Somebody was dying in the tower! Somebody who was being hidden from us. Why? Who? Yes, who? For that somebody was neither M. nor Madame Darzac, nor Bernier nor his wife, and certainly not Old Bob. It was somebody who couldn’t possibly be in the tower!

  At the risk of our lives, we leaned over the parapet, craning our necks towards the window through which the dying sigh had floated, and we listened. Fifteen minutes passed. It seemed like a century. Rouletabille drew my attention to the light in the window of his room. I understood. I would have to put out that light and come down again. I went up cautiously, and in five minutes was once more at Rouletabille’s side.

  The only lights visible now in the courtyard of Charles the Bold were the thin line of light under the door of Old Bob’s study in the subterranean arsenal of the Round Tower, and the little la
ntern in the gardener’s gatehouse, where Mattoni was on watch. Considering how they were placed, it was not, after all, surprising that neither Old Bob nor Mattoni had heard anything of what had gone on in the Square Tower or Rouletabille’s cry for that matter, which rang out over their heads. The gatehouse walls were very thick, and Old Bob’s study was practically in a cellar.

  I had just slipped back into the corner of the wall formed by the tower and the parapet, the observation post that my friend had not left for a moment, when we heard the door of the Square Tower moving on its hinges. I was about to lean forward, thrusting my head and shoulders around the corner of the wall, when Rouletabille pulled me back, not wishing anyone but himself to look round the corner, but since he was stooping very low, I ignored his orders and peered over his head. This is what I saw:

  First, Bernier, perfectly recognisable notwithstanding the darkness, came out of the tower, and went noiselessly towards the gardener’s gatehouse. When he reached the centre of the courtyard, he looked up towards our windows in the New Castle, then turned towards the tower, and made a sign which we understood to mean that the coast was clear. Who was that sign intended for? Rouletabille leaned forward again, but suddenly swung back, thrusting me roughly into the corner.

  When we dared look out again, there was nobody in the courtyard. Then, we saw Bernier coming back, or, rather, we heard him first, for he stopped to speak to Mattoni, but we could not catch what they said. Then we heard something coming in under the arch of the gardener’s gatehouse, and Bernier appeared walking beside what seemed to be a cart of some sort. We soon saw that this was Arthur Rance’s pony, Toby, drawing a small trap. The courtyard was covered in loose earth, so that the wheels made no more noise than if they had been rolling over a carpet. The pony was quiet and well-behaved, as if understanding what was expected of it.

  Bernier looked up at our windows again as he crossed the courtyard, and, at last, leading Toby by the bridle, he stopped in front of the door of the Square Tower. He left the pony standing there and entered the tower. A few minutes passed, which seemed like centuries to us, especially to my friend, who was shaking violently although I could not guess at the reason for his agitation.

  Bernier reappeared, again crossed the courtyard alone and returned to the gatehouse. We leaned a long way out then, for the people who appeared on the threshold of the Square Tower door would certainly have seen us if they had looked in our direction, but they were too busy with other things. All at once, the sky cleared, and a bright moon sent its shimmering rays over the waves, washing the courtyard in a soft blue light. The two people who had come out of the tower and were standing near the cart were so taken aback by this sudden brightness that they instinctively recoiled. However, we could hear the Lady in Black saying:

  ‘Be brave, Robert! We must!’

  Robert Darzac answered in a strange voice:

  ‘It isn’t courage that I lack.’

  He was bending over something that he was dragging along the ground. He lifted it with great difficulty and tried to stow it under the seat in the cart. Rouletabille had removed his cap, his teeth were chattering. As far as he could make out, the thing was a sack. In order to move the sack, M. Darzac had to make a great effort, and again we heard a sigh.

  Leaning against the tower wall, the Lady in Black was watching him, without offering to help. Suddenly, just as Darzac had succeeded in lifting the sack into the cart and placing it under the seat, we heard the Lady in Black exclaim in a voice strangled with emotion:

  ‘He’s moving!’

  ‘It’s over!’ Darzac replied, wiping his brow.

  Thereupon he slipped on his overcoat and took Toby by the reins. He walked away, motioning to the Lady in Black, but she stood flattened against the wall as though pinioned to a rack, and did not answer.

  Darzac seemed quite calm. He was very erect and walked with a firm step, one might almost say with the step of an honest man convinced that he has done his duty. Taking every possible care to avoid attracting attention, he disappeared beneath the gardener’s gatehouse with the cart, and the Lady in Black went back into the tower.

  I wanted to leave our hiding-place, but Rouletabille made me stay where I was. He was quite right, for just then, Bernier stepped out from under the gatehouse, and came back across the courtyard, heading towards the Square Tower. When he was only about a couple of yards from the door, which was closed, Rouletabille slipped quietly out of his corner, stood between the door and Bernier, thus frightening him considerably, and caught him by the wrist.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said.

  The man seemed overcome. I too had left my hiding-place. In the blue moonlight, he stared at us with bloodshot eyes, and he murmured:

  ‘It is a great misfortune!’

  CHAPTER XII

  The impossible body

  ‘It will be go ill with you if you do not tell the truth,’ said Rouletabille, in an undertone. ‘But no harm will come to you if you hide nothing. Come along!’

  Still holding the man by the wrist, he led him away towards the New Castle, and I followed. From that moment, Rouletabille was himself again. Now that he was rid of that problem of the heart, which had interfered with the free working of his mental faculties (now that he had found the perfume of the Lady in Black again) all the powers of his extraordinary mind were restored, enabling him to wrestle with the mystery confronting him. There was no hesitation. He came straight to the point. Not one word did he utter that did not contribute in some way to extricating us from the frightful situation in which the attack in the tower had placed the besieged woman.

  Bernier offered no resistance. He walked before us with his head bowed, like a man about to appear before his judges. When we reached Rouletabille’s room, he told Bernier to sit down while I lit the lamp.

  At first, Rouletabille did not say a word.

  He filled his pipe and stared at Bernier, as if trying to estimate the exact degree of honesty that lay behind those stolid features. Eventually, his frown disappeared and, having sent a few puffs of smoke ceilingwards, he said:

  ‘Now then, Bernier, how did they kill him?’

  Bernier shook his head.

  ‘I’ve sworn not to say anything. I don’t know, sir, indeed, I don’t!’

  Rouletabille: ‘Well, tell me then what you don’t know. I swear to you, Bernier, that if you don’t tell me what you don’t know, I won’t answer for the consequences.’

  ‘What consequences, sir ?’

  ‘Your safety, for instance.’

  ‘My safety, sir? I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘Everybody’s safety. The lives of everyone here!’ exclaimed Rouletabille, getting up and striding about the room. After a moment he said: ‘So he was in the Square Tower?’

  ‘Yes,’ nodded Bernier.

  ‘In your lodge?’

  ‘No,’ nodded Bernier.

  ‘Where could he be then? You don’t expect me to believe that he was in M. and Madame Darzac’s rooms, do you?’

  ‘Yes,’ nodded Bernier.

  ‘Wretch!’ growled Rouletabille, leaping at Bernier and seizing him by the throat. I ran to Bernier’s assistance and, when I had succeeded in loosening Rouletabille’s fingers, he gasped:

  ‘M. Rouletabille, why do you want to strangle me?’

  ‘How can you ask me? How dare you ask such a thing, and at the same time confess that he was in the Darzacs’ rooms? I’d like to know who let him in if you didn’t. Nobody but you had the key when M. and Madame Darzac were not there.’

  Bernier rose, very pale.

  ‘Do you accuse me, M. Rouletabille, of being Larsan’s accomplice?’

  ‘I forbid you to pronounce that name!’ shouted the reporter. ‘You know perfectly well that Larsan is dead and has been dead a long time.’

  ‘Oh yes, he died a long time ago!’ replied Bernier ironically. ‘How could I forget? When a fellow devotes himself to his masters, when he fights for them, he mustn’t even know who he’s fi
ghting. I beg your pardon.’

  ‘Listen to me, Bernier. I know you, and I have a high opinion of your honesty. You are a faithful fellow. I’m not accusing you of playing us false, but of being negligent.’

  ‘Negligent!’ bellowed Bernier, his face changing from deathly pale to crimson. ‘Negligent! I never budged from my lodge or the corridor in front of it. I have always carried the key in my pocket, and I swear that nobody, not another soul but M. and Madame Darzac, went into those rooms after you left them at five o’clock. I do not count the time, of course, when you and M. Sainclair were there at six o’clock.’

  ‘You don’t suppose that you can make me believe that that man,’ said Rouletabille, ‘we have forgotten his name, remember, Bernier, could have been killed in the Darzacs’ rooms if he wasn’t even there?’

  ‘No, I don’t. That’s why I tell you that he was there.’

  ‘Yes, but how? That’s what I’m trying to find out, Bernier. You alone can tell me, for you alone had the key when M. Darzac wasn’t there, and M. Darzac didn’t leave his room while he had the key, and nobody could hide in his rooms while he was there.’

  ‘Ah, that’s the mystery, sir! M. Darzac was as puzzled as you are, sir, but I couldn’t tell him anything but what I’ve told you. That’s the mystery.’

  ‘When we left M. Darzac’s room, M. Sainclair and I, with M. Darzac, at about a quarter-past six, you shut the door immediately, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘When did you open it again?’

  ‘Why, sir, once this evening to let M. and Madame Darzac into their rooms. M. Darzac had just come in, and Madame Darzac had been in Mr Bob’s sitting room for a little while after you left, M. Sainclair. They met in the corridor, and I opened their door for them. That’s all. As soon as they got inside, I heard them close it with the bolt.’

  ‘Am I to understand, then, that between a quarter-past six and that moment you did not open the door for anyone?’