Kitabı oku: «The Woman of Mystery», sayfa 9
Bernard, seeing what Paul did, whispered in his ear:
"So you have made up your mind? We're to shoot him down?"
"Wait till I give the signal," answered Paul. "But don't you fire at him, aim at the spy."
In spite of everything, he was thinking of the inexplicable mystery of the bonds connecting Major Hermann with Bernard d'Andeville and his sister Élisabeth and he could not allow Bernard to be the one to carry out the act of justice. He himself hesitated, as one hesitates before performing an action of which one does not realize the full scope. Who was that scoundrel? What identity was Paul to ascribe to him? To-day, Major Hermann and chief of the German secret service; yesterday, Prince Conrad's boon companion, all-powerful at the Château d'Ornequin, disguising himself as a peasant-woman and prowling through Corvigny; long before that, an assassin, the Emperor's accomplice.. and the lady of Ornequin: which of all these personalities, which were but different aspects of one and the same being, was the real one?
Paul looked at the major in bewilderment, as he had looked at the photograph and, in the locked room, at the portrait of Hermine d'Andeville. Hermann, Hermine! In his mind the two names became merged into one. And he noticed the daintiness of the hands, white and small as a woman's hands. The tapering fingers were decked with rings set with precious stones. The booted feet, too, were delicately formed. The colorless face showed not a trace of hair. But all this effeminate appearance was belied by the grating sound of a hoarse voice, by heaviness of gait and movement and by a sort of barbarous strength.
The major put his hands before his face and reflected for a few minutes. Karl watched him with a certain air of pity and seemed to be asking himself whether his master was not beginning to feel some kind of remorse at the thought of the crimes which he had committed. But the major threw off his torpor and, in a hardly audible voice, quivering with nothing but hatred, said:
"On their heads be it, Karl! On their heads be it for trying to get in our path! I put away the father and I did well. One day it will be the son's turn. And now.. now we have the girl to see to."
"Shall I take charge of that, Excellenz?"
"No, I have a use for you here and I must stay here myself. Things are going very badly. But I shall go down there early in January. I shall be at Èbrecourt on the morning of the tenth of January. The business must be finished forty-eight hours after. And it shall be finished, that I swear to you."
He was again silent while the spy laughed loudly. Paul had stooped, so as to bring his eyes to the level of his revolver. It would be criminal to hesitate now. To kill the major no longer meant revenging himself and slaying his father's murderer: it meant preventing a further crime and saving Élisabeth. He had to act, whatever the consequences of his act might be. He made up his mind.
"Are you ready?" he whispered to Bernard.
"Yes. I am waiting for you to give the signal."
He took aim coldly, waiting for the propitious moment, and was about to pull the trigger, when Karl said, in German: "I say, Excellenz, do you know what's being prepared for the ferryman's house?"
"What?"
"An attack, just that. A hundred volunteers from the African companies are on their way through the marshes now. The assault will be delivered at dawn. You have only just time to let them know at headquarters and to find out what precautions they intend to take."
The major simply said:
"They are taken."
"What's that you say, Excellenz?"
"I say, that they are taken. I had word from another quarter; and, as they attach great value to the ferryman's house, I telephoned to the officer in command of the post that we would send him three hundred men at five o'clock in the morning. The African volunteers will be caught in a trap. Not one of them will come back alive."
The major gave a little laugh of satisfaction and turned up the collar of his cloak as he added:
"Besides, to make doubly sure, I shall go and spend the night there.. especially as I am beginning to wonder whether the officer commanding the post did not chance to send some men here with instructions to take the papers off Rosenthal, whom he knew to be dead."
"But."
"That'll do. Have Rosenthal seen to and let's be off."
"Am I to go with you, Excellenz?"
"No, there's no need. One of the boats will take me up the canal. The house is not forty minutes from here."
In answer to the spy's call, three soldiers came down and hoisted the dead man's body to the trap-door overhead. Karl and the major both remained where they were, at the foot of the ladder, while Karl turned the light of the lantern, which he had taken down from the wall, towards the trap-door.
Bernard whispered:
"Shall we fire now?"
"No," said Paul.
"But."
"I forbid you."
When the operation was over, the major said to Karl:
"Give me a good light and see that the ladder doesn't slip."
He went up and disappeared from sight.
"All right," he said. "Hurry."
The spy climbed the ladder in his turn. Their footsteps were heard overhead. The steps moved in the direction of the canal and there was not a sound.
"What on earth came over you?" cried Bernard. "We shall never have another chance like that. The two ruffians would have dropped at the first shot."
"And we after them," said Paul. "There were twelve of them up there. We should have been doomed."
"But Élisabeth would have been saved, Paul! Upon my word, I don't understand you. Fancy having two monsters like that at our mercy and letting them go! The man who murdered your father and who is torturing Élisabeth was there; and you think of ourselves!"
"Bernard," said Paul Delroze, "you didn't understand what they said at the end, in German. The enemy has been warned of the attack and of our plans against the ferryman's house. In a little while, the hundred volunteers who are stealing up through the marsh will be the victims of an ambush laid for them. We've got to save them first. We have no right to sacrifice our lives before performing that duty. And I am sure that you agree with me."
"Yes," said Bernard. "But all the same it was a grand opportunity."
"We shall have another and perhaps soon," said Paul, thinking of the ferryman's house to which Major Hermann was now on his way.
"Well, what do you propose to do?"
"I shall join the detachment of volunteers. If the lieutenant in command is of my opinion, he will not wait until seven to deliver the assault, but attack at once. And I shall be of the party."
"And I?"
"Go back to the colonel. Explain the position to him and tell him that the ferryman's house will be captured this morning and that we shall hold it until reinforcements come up."
They parted with no more words and Paul plunged resolutely into the marshes.
The task which he was undertaking did not meet with the obstacles he expected. After forty minutes of rather difficult progress, he heard the murmur of voices, gave the password and told the men to take him to the lieutenant.
Paul's explanations at once convinced that officer: the job must either be abandoned or hurried on at once.
The column went ahead. At three o'clock, guided by a peasant who knew a path where the men sank no deeper than their knees, they succeeded in reaching the neighborhood of the house unperceived. Then, when the alarm had been given by a sentry, the attack began.
This attack, one of the finest feats of arms in the war, is too well known to need a detailed description here. It was extremely violent. The enemy, who was on his guard, made an equally vigorous defense. There was a tangle of barbed wire to be forced and many pitfalls to be overcome. A furious hand-to-hand fight took place first outside and then inside the house; and, by the time that the French had gained the victory after killing or taking prisoner the eighty-three Germans who defended it, they themselves had suffered losses which reduced their effective force by half.
Paul was the first to leap into the trenches, the line of which ran beside the house on the left and was extended in a semicircle as far as the Yser. He had an idea: before the attack succeeded and before it was even certain that it would succeed, he wanted to cut off all retreat on the part of the fugitives.
Driven back at first, he made for the bank, followed by three volunteers, stepped into the water, went up the canal and thus came to the other side of the house, where, as he expected, he found a bridge of boats.
At that moment, he saw a figure disappearing in the darkness.
"Stay here," he said to his men, "and let no one pass."
He himself jumped out of the water, crossed the bridge and began to run.
A searchlight was thrown on the canal bank and he again perceived the figure, thirty yards in front of him.
A minute later, he shouted:
"Halt, or I fire!"
And, as the man continued to run, he fired, but aimed so as not to hit him.
The fugitive stopped and fired his revolver four times, while Paul, stooping down, flung himself between his legs and brought him to the ground.
The enemy, seeing that he was mastered, offered no resistance. Paul rolled his cloak round him and took him by the throat. With the hand that remained free, he threw the light of his pocket-lamp full on the other's face.
His instinct had not deceived him: the man he held by the throat was Major Hermann.
CHAPTER XIII
THE FERRYMAN'S HOUSE
Paul Delroze did not speak a word. Pushing his prisoner in front of him, after tying the major's wrists behind his back, he returned to the bridge of boats in the darkness illumined by brief flashes of light.
The fighting continued. But a certain number of the enemy tried to run away; and, when the volunteers who guarded the bridge received them with a volley of fire, the Germans thought that they had been cut off; and this diversion hastened their defeat.
When Paul arrived, the combat was over. But the enemy was bound, sooner or later, to deliver a counter-attack, supported by the reinforcements that had been promised to the commandant; and the defense was prepared forthwith.
The ferryman's house, which had been strongly fortified by the Germans and surrounded with trenches, consisted of a ground floor and an upper story of three rooms, now knocked into one. At the back of this large room, however, was a recess with a sloping roof, reached by three steps, which at one time had done duty as a servant's attic. Paul, who was entrusted with the arrangement of this upper floor, brought his prisoner here. He laid him on the floor, bound him with a cord and fastened him to a beam; and, while doing so, he was seized with such a paroxysm of hatred that he took him by the throat as though to strangle him.
He mastered himself, however. After all, there was no hurry. Before killing the man or handing him over to the soldiers to be shot against the wall, why deny himself the supreme satisfaction of having an explanation with him?
When the lieutenant entered, Paul said, so as to be heard by all and especially by the major:
"I recommend that scoundrel to your care, lieutenant. It's Major Hermann, one of the chief spies in the German army. I have the proofs on me. Remember that, in case anything happens to me. And, if we should have to retreat.."
The lieutenant smiled:
"There's no question of that. We shall not retreat, for the very good reason that I would rather blow up the shanty first. And Major Hermann, therefore, would be blown up with us. So make your mind easy."
The two officers discussed the defensive measures to be adopted; and the men quickly got to work.
First of all, the bridge of boats was unmade, trenches dug along the canal and the machine-guns turned to face the other way. Paul, on his first floor, had the sandbags moved from the one side of the house to the other and the less solid-looking portions of the wall shored up with beams.
At half-past five, under the rays of the German flashlights, several shells fell round about. One of them struck the house. The big guns began to sweep the towpath.
A few minutes before daybreak, a detachment of cyclists arrived by this path, with Bernard d'Andeville at their head. He explained that two companies and a section of sappers in advance of a complete battalion had started, but their progress was hampered by the enemy's shells and they were obliged to skirt the marshes, under the cover of the dyke supporting the towpath. This had slowed their march; and it would be an hour before they could arrive.
"An hour," said the lieutenant. "It will be stiff work. Still, we can do it. So."
While he was giving new orders and placing the cyclists at their posts, Paul came up; and he was just going to tell Bernard of Major Hermann's capture, when his brother-in-law announced his news:
"I say, Paul, dad's with me!"
Paul gave a start:
"Your father is here? Your father came with you?"
"Just so; and in the most natural manner. You must know that he had been looking for an opportunity for some time. By the way, he has been promoted to interpreter lieutenant.."
Paul was no longer listening. He merely said to himself:
"M. d'Andeville is here… M. d'Andeville, the Comtesse Hermine's husband. He must know, surely. Is she alive or dead? Or has he been the dupe of a scheming woman to the end and does he still bear a loving recollection of one who has vanished from his life? But no, that's incredible, because there is that photograph, taken four years later and sent to him: sent to him from Berlin! So he knows; and then.. ?"
Paul was greatly perplexed. The revelations made by Karl the spy had suddenly revealed M. d'Andeville in a startling light. And now circumstances were bringing M. d'Andeville into Paul's presence, at the very time when Major Hermann had been captured.
Paul turned towards the attic. The major was lying motionless, with his face against the wall.
"Your father has remained outside?" Paul asked his brother-in-law.
"Yes, he took the bicycle of a man who was riding near us and who was slightly wounded. Papa is seeing to him."
"Go and fetch him; and, if the lieutenant doesn't object."
He was interrupted by the bursting of a shrapnel shell the bullets of which riddled the sandbags heaped up in the front of them. The day was breaking. They could see an enemy column looming out of the darkness a mile away at most.
"Ready there!" shouted the lieutenant from below. "Don't fire a shot till I give the order. No one to show himself!"
It was not until a quarter of an hour later and then only for four or five minutes that Paul and M. d'Andeville were able to exchange a few words. Their conversation, moreover, was so greatly hurried that Paul had no time to decide what attitude he should take up in the presence of Élisabeth's father. The tragedy of the past, the part which the Comtesse Hermine's husband played in that tragedy: all this was mingled in his mind with the defense of the block-house. And, in spite of their great liking for each other, their greeting was somewhat absent and distracted.
Paul was ordering a small window to be stopped with a mattress. Bernard was posted at the other end of the room.
M. d'Andeville said to Paul:
"You're sure of holding out, aren't you?"
"Absolutely, as we've got to."
"Yes, you've got to. I was with the division yesterday, with the English general to whom I am attached as interpreter, when the attack was decided on. The position seems to be of essential importance; and it is indispensable that we should stick to it. I saw that this gave me an opportunity of seeing you, Paul, as I knew that your regiment was to be here. So I asked leave to accompany the contingent that had been ordered to.."
There was a fresh interruption. A shell came through the roof and shattered the wall on the side opposite to the canal.
"Any one hurt?"
"No, sir."
M. d'Andeville went on:
"The strangest part of it was finding Bernard at your colonel's last night. You can imagine how glad I was to join the cyclists. It was my only chance of seeing something of my boy and of shaking you by the hand… And then I had no news of my poor Élisabeth; and Bernard told me.."
"Ah," said Paul quickly, "has Bernard told you all that happened at the château?"
"At least, as much as he knew; but there are a good many things that are difficult to understand; and Bernard says that you have more precise details. For instance, why did Élisabeth stay at the château?"
"Because she wanted to," said Paul. "I was not told of her decision until later, by letter."
"I know. But why didn't you take her with you, Paul?"
"When I left Ornequin, I made all the necessary arrangements for her to go."
"Good. But you ought not to have left Ornequin without her. All the trouble is due to that."
M. d'Andeville had been speaking with a certain acerbity, and, as Paul did not answer, he asked again:
"Why didn't you take Élisabeth away? Bernard said that there was something very serious, that you spoke of exceptional circumstances. Perhaps you won't mind explaining."
Paul seemed to suspect a latent hostility in M. d'Andeville; and this irritated him all the more on the part of a man whose conduct now appeared to him so perplexing:
"Do you think," he said, "that this is quite the moment?"
"Yes, yes, yes. We may be separated any minute.."
Paul did not allow him to finish. He turned abruptly towards his father-in-law and exclaimed:
"You are right, sir! It's a horrible idea. It would be terrible if I were not able to reply to your questions or you to mine. Élisabeth's fate perhaps depends on the few words which we are about to speak. For we must know the truth between us. A single word may bring it to light; and there is no time to be lost. We must speak out now… Whatever happens."
His excitement surprised M. d'Andeville, who asked:
"Wouldn't it be as well to call Bernard over?"
"No, no," said Paul, "on no account! It's a thing that he mustn't know about, because it concerns.."
"Because it concerns whom?" asked M. d'Andeville, who was more and more astonished.
A man standing near them was hit by a bullet and fell. Paul rushed to his assistance; but the man had been shot through the forehead and was dead. Two more bullets entered through an opening which was wider than it need be; and Paul ordered it to be partly closed up.
M. d'Andeville, who had been helping him, pursued the conversation:
"You were saying that Bernard must not hear because it concerns.."
"His mother," Paul replied.
"His mother? What do you mean? His mother? It concerns my wife? I don't understand.."
Through the loopholes in the wall they could see three enemy columns advancing, above the flooded fields, moving forward on narrow causeways which converged towards the canal opposite the ferryman's house.
"We shall fire when they are two hundred yards from the canal," said the lieutenant commanding the volunteers, who had come to inspect the defenses. "If only their guns don't knock the shanty about too much!"
"Where are our reinforcements?" asked Paul.
"They'll be here in thirty or forty minutes. Meantime the seventy-fives are doing good work."
The shells were flying through space in both directions, some falling in the midst of the German columns, others around the blockhouse. Paul ran to every side, encouraging and directing the men. From time to time he went to the attic and looked at Major Hermann, who lay perfectly still. Then Paul returned to his post.
He did not for a second cease to think of the duty incumbent on him as an officer and a combatant, nor for a second of what he had to say to M. d'Andeville. But these two mingled obsessions deprived him of all lucidity of mind! and he did not know how to come to an explanation with his father-in-law or how to unravel the tangled position. M. d'Andeville asked his question several times. He did not reply.
The lieutenant's voice was raised:
"Attention!.. Present!.. Fire!."
The command was repeated four times over. The nearest enemy column, decimated by the bullets, seemed to waver. But the others came up with it; and it formed up again.
Two German shells burst against the house. The roof was carried away bodily, several feet of the frontage were demolished and three men killed.
After the storm, a calm. But Paul had so clear a sense of the danger which threatened them all that he was unable to contain himself any longer. Suddenly making up his mind, addressing M. d'Andeville without further preamble, he said:
"One word in particular… I must know… Are you quite sure that the Comtesse d'Andeville is dead?" And without waiting for the reply, he went on: "Yes, you think my question mad. It seems so to you because you do not know. But I am not mad; and I ask you to answer my question as you would do if I had the time to state the reasons that justify me in asking it. Is the Comtesse Hermine dead?"
M. d'Andeville, restraining his feelings and consenting to adopt the hypothesis which Paul seemed to insist on, said:
"Is there any reason that allows you to presume that my wife is still alive?"
"There are very serious reasons, I might say, incontestable reasons."
M. d'Andeville shrugged his shoulders and said, in a firm voice:
"My wife died in my arms. My lips touched her icy hands, felt that chill of death which is so horrible in those we love. I myself dressed her, as she had asked, in her wedding gown; and I was there when they nailed down the coffin. Anything else?"
Paul listened to him and thought to himself:
"Has he spoken the truth? Yes, he has; and still how can I admit.. ?"
Speaking more imperiously, M. d'Andeville repeated:
"Anything else?"
"Yes," said Paul, "one more question. There was a portrait in the Comtesse d'Andeville's boudoir: was that her portrait?"
"Certainly, her full length portrait."
"Showing her with a black lace scarf over her shoulders?"
"Yes, the kind of scarf she liked wearing."
"And the scarf was fastened in front by a cameo set in a gold snake?"
"Yes, it was an old cameo which belonged to my mother and which my wife always wore."
Paul yielded to thoughtless impulse. M. d'Andeville's assertions seemed to him so many admissions; and, trembling with rage, he rapped out:
"Monsieur, you have not forgotten, have you, that my father was murdered? We often spoke of it, you and I. He was your friend. Well, the woman who murdered him and whom I saw, the woman whose image has stamped itself on my brain wore a black lace scarf round her shoulders and a cameo set in a gold snake. And I found this woman's portrait in your wife's room. Yes, I saw her portrait on my wedding evening. Do you understand now? Do you understand or don't you?"
It was a tragic moment between the two men. M. d'Andeville stood trembling, with his hands clutching his rifle.
"Why is he trembling?" Paul asked himself; and his suspicions increased until they became an actual accusation. "Is it a feeling of protest or his rage at being unmasked that makes him shake like that? And am I to look upon him as his wife's accomplice? For, after all.."
He felt a fierce grip twisting his arm. M. d'Andeville, gray in the face, blurted out:
"How dare you? How dare you suggest that my wife murdered your father? Why, you must be drunk! My wife, a saint in the sight of God and man! And you dare! Oh, I don't know what keeps me from smashing your face in!"
Paul released himself roughly. The two men, shaking with a rage which was increased by the din of the firing and the madness of their quarrel, were on the verge of coming to blows while the shells and bullets whistled all around them.
Then a new strip of wall fell to pieces. Paul gave his orders and, at the same time, thought of Major Hermann lying in his corner, to whom he could have brought M. d'Andeville like a criminal who is confronted with his accomplice. But why then did he not do so?
Suddenly remembering the photograph of the Comtesse Hermine which he had found on Rosenthal's body, he took it from his pocket and thrust it in front of M. d'Andeville's eyes:
"And this?" he shouted. "Do you know what this is?.. There's a date on it, 1902, and you pretend that the Comtesse Hermine is dead!.. Answer me, can't you? A photograph taken in Berlin and sent to you by your wife four years after her death!"
M. d'Andeville staggered. It was as though all his rage had evaporated and was changing into infinite stupefaction. Paul brandished before his face the overwhelming proof constituted by that bit of cardboard. And he heard M. d'Andeville mutter:
"Who can have stolen it from me? It was among my papers in Paris… Why didn't I tear it up?." Then he added, in a very low whisper, "Oh, Hermine, Hermine, my adored one!"
Surely it was an avowal? But, if so, what was the meaning of an avowal expressed in those terms and with that declaration of love for a woman laden with crime and infamy?
The lieutenant shouted from the ground floor:
"Everybody into the trenches, except ten men. Delroze, keep the best shots and order independent firing."
The volunteers, headed by Bernard, hurried downstairs. The enemy was approaching the canal, in spite of the losses which he had sustained. In fact, on the right and left, knots of pioneers, constantly renewed, were already striving with might and main to collect the boats stranded on the bank. The lieutenant in command of the volunteers formed his men into a first line of defense against the imminent assault, while the sharpshooters in the house had orders to kill without ceasing under the storm of shells.
One by one, five of these marksmen fell.
Paul and M. d'Andeville were here, there and everywhere, while consulting one another as to the commands to be given and the things to be done. There was not the least chance, in view of their great inferiority in numbers, that they would be able to resist. But there was some hope of their holding out until the arrival of the reinforcements, which would ensure the possession of the blockhouse.
The French artillery, finding it impossible to secure an effective aim amid the confusion of the combatants, had ceased fire, whereas the German guns were still bombarding the house; and shells were bursting at every moment.
Yet another man was wounded. He was carried into the attic and laid beside Major Hermann, where he died almost immediately.
Outside, there was fighting on and even in the water of the canal, in the boats and around them. There were hand-to-hand contests amid general uproar, yells of execration and pain, cries of terror and shouts of victory. The confusion was so great that Paul and M. d'Andeville found it difficult to take aim.
Paul said to his father-in-law:
"I'm afraid we may be done for before assistance arrives. I am bound therefore to warn you that the lieutenant has made his arrangements to blow up the house. As you are here by accident, without any authorization that gives you the quality or duties of a combatant.."
"I am here as a Frenchman," said M. d'Andeville, "and I shall stay on to the end."
"Then perhaps we shall have time to finish what we have to say, sir. Listen to me. I will be as brief as I can. But if you should see the least glimmer of light, please do not hesitate to interrupt me."
He fully understood that there was a gulf of darkness between them and that, whether guilty or not, whether his wife's accomplice or her dupe, M. d'Andeville must know things which he, Paul, did not know and that these things could only be made plain by an adequate recital of what had happened.
He therefore began to speak. He spoke calmly and deliberately, while M. d'Andeville listened in silence. And they never ceased firing, quietly loading, aiming and reloading, as though they were at practise. All around and above them death pursued its implacable work.
Paul had hardly described his arrival at Ornequin with Élisabeth, their entrance into the locked room and his dismay at the sight of the portrait, when an enormous shell exploded over their heads, spattering them with shrapnel bullets.
The four volunteers were hit. Paul also fell, wounded in the neck; and, though he suffered no pain, he felt that all his ideas were gradually fading into a mist without his being able to retain them. He made an effort, however, and by some miracle of will was still able to exercise a remnant of energy that allowed him to keep his hold on certain reflections and impressions. Thus he saw his father-in-law kneeling beside him and succeeded in saying to him:
"Élisabeth's diary… You'll find it in my kit-bag in camp.. with a few pages written by myself.. which will explain… But first you must.. Look, that German officer over there, bound up.. he's a spy… Keep an eye on him… Kill him… If not, on the tenth of January.. but you will kill him, won't you?"
Paul could speak no more. Besides, he saw that M. d'Andeville was not kneeling down to listen to him or help him, but that, himself shot, with his face bathed in blood, he was bending double and finally fell in a huddled heap, uttering moans that grew fainter and fainter.
A great calm now descended on the big room, while the rifles crackled outside. The German guns were no longer firing. The enemy's counter-attack must be meeting with success; and Paul, incapable of moving, lay awaiting the terrible explosion foretold by the lieutenant.
He pronounced Élisabeth's name time after time. He reflected that no danger threatened her now, because Major Hermann was also about to die. Besides, her brother Bernard would know how to defend her. But after a while this sort of tranquillity disappeared, changed into uneasiness and then into restless anxiety, giving way to a feeling of which every second that passed increased the torture. He could not tell whether he was haunted by a nightmare, by some morbid hallucination. It all happened on the side of the attic to which he had dragged Major Hermann. A soldier's dead body was lying between them. And it seemed, to his horror, as if the major had cut his bonds and were rising to his feet and looking around him.
Paul exerted all his strength to open his eyes and keep them open. But an ever thicker shadow veiled them; and through this shadow he perceived, as one sees a confused sight in the darkness, the major taking off his cloak, stooping over the body, removing its blue coat and buttoning it on himself. Then he put the dead man's cap on his head, fastened his scarf round his neck, took the soldier's rifle, bayonet and cartridges and, thus transfigured, stepped down the three wooden stairs.
