Chapter 3: A Man Doomed

The door was opened by a manservant. Mazeroux sent in his card.

Hippolyte received the two visitors in his study. The table, on which stood a movable telephone, was littered with books, pamphlets, and papers. There were two tall desks, with diagrams and drawings, and some glass cases containing reduced models, in ivory and steel, of apparatus constructed or invented by the engineer.

A large sofa stood against the wall. In one corner was a winding staircase that led to a circular gallery. An electric chandelier hung from the ceiling.

Mazeroux, after stating his quality and introducing his friend Perenna as also sent by the Prefect of Police, at once expounded the object of their visit.

M. Desmalions, he said, was feeling anxious on the score of very serious indications which he had just received and, without waiting for the next day's interview, begged M. Fauville to take all the precautions which his detectives might advise.

Fauville at first displayed a certain ill humour.

"My precautions are taken, gentlemen, and well taken. And, on the other hand, I am afraid that your interference may do harm."

"In what way?"

"By arousing the attention of my enemies and preventing me, for that reason, from collecting proofs which I need in order to confound them."

"Can you explain—?"

"No, I cannot ... Tomorrow, tomorrow morning—not before."

"And if it's too late?" Don Luis interjected.

"Too late? Tomorrow?"

"Inspector Vérot told M. Desmalions's secretary that the two murders would take place tonight. He said it was fatal and irrevocable."

"Tonight?" cried Fauville angrily. "I tell you no! Not tonight. I'm sure of that. There are things which I know, aren't there, which you do not?"

"Yes," retorted Don Luis, "but there may also be things which Inspector Vérot knew and which you don't know. He had perhaps learned more of your enemies' secrets than you did. The proof is that he was suspected, that a man carrying an ebony walking-stick was seen watching his movements, that, lastly, he was killed."

Hippolyte Fauville's self-assurance decreased. Perenna took advantage of this to insist; and he insisted to such good purpose that Fauville, though without withdrawing from his reserve, ended by yielding before a will that was stronger than his own.

"Well, but you surely don't intend to spend the night in here?"

"We do indeed."

"Why, it's ridiculous! It's sheer waste of time! After all, looking at things from the worst—And what do you want besides?"

"Who lives in the house?"

"Who? My wife, to begin with. She has the first floor."

"Mme. Fauville is not threatened?"

"No, not at all. It's I who am threatened with death; I and my son Edmond. That is why, for the past week, instead of sleeping in my regular bedroom, I have locked myself up in this room. I have given my work as a pretext; a quantity of writing which keeps me up very late and for which I need my son's assistance."

"Does he sleep here, then?"

"He sleeps above us, in a little room which I have had arranged for him. The only access to it is by this inner staircase."

"Is he there now?"

"Yes, he's asleep."

"How old is he?"

"Sixteen."

"But the fact that you have changed your room shows that you feared some one would attack you. Whom had you in mind? An enemy living in the house? One of your servants? Or people from the outside? In that case, how could they get in? The whole question lies in that."

"Tomorrow, tomorrow," replied Fauville, obstinately. "I will explain everything tomorrow..."

"Why not tonight?" Perenna persisted.

"Because I want proofs, I tell you; because the mere fact of my talking may have terrible consequences—and I am frightened; yes, I'm frightened..."

He was trembling, in fact, and looked so wretched and terrified that Don Luis insisted no longer.

"Very well," he said, "I will only ask your permission, for my comrade and myself, to spend the night where we can hear you if you call."

"As you please, Monsieur. Perhaps, after all, that will be best."

At that moment one of the servants knocked and came in to say that his mistress wished to see the master before she went out. Madame Fauville entered almost immediately. She bowed pleasantly as Perenna and Mazeroux rose from their chairs.

She was a woman between thirty and thirty-five, a woman of a bright and smiling beauty, which she owed to her blue eyes, to her wavy hair, to all the charm of her rather vapid but amiable and very pretty face. She wore a long, figured-silk cloak over an evening dress that showed her fine shoulders.

Her husband said, in surprise

"Are you going out tonight?"

"You forget," she said. "The Auverards offered me a seat in their box at the opera; and you yourself asked me to look in at Mme. d'Ersingen's party afterward..."

"So I did, so I did," he said. "It escaped my memory; I am working so hard."

She finished buttoning her gloves and asked:

"Won't you come and fetch me at Mme. d'Ersingen's?"

"What for?"

"They would like it."

"But I shouldn't. Besides, I don't feel well enough."

"Then I'll make your apologies for you."

"Yes, do."

She drew her cloak around her with a graceful gesture, and stood for a few moments, without moving, as though seeking a word of farewell. Then she said:

"Edmond's not here! I thought he was working with you?"

"He was feeling tired."

"Is he asleep?"

"Yes."

"I wanted to kiss him good-night."

"No, you would only wake him. And here's your car; so go, dear. Amuse yourself."

"Oh, amuse myself!" she said. "There's not much amusement about the opera and an evening party."

"Still, it's better than keeping one's room."

There was some little constraint. It was obviously one of those ill-assorted households in which the husband, suffering in health and not caring for the pleasures of society, stays at home, while the wife seeks the enjoyments to which her age and habits entitle her.

As he said nothing more, she bent over and kissed him on the forehead. Then, once more bowing to the two visitors, she went out. A moment later they heard the sound of the motor driving away.

Hippolyte Fauville at once rose and rang the bell. Then he said:

"No one here has any idea of the danger hanging over me. I have confided in nobody, not even in Silvestre, my own man, though he has been in my service for years and is honesty itself."

The manservant entered.

"I am going to bed, Silvestre," said M. Fauville. "Get everything ready."

Silvestre opened the upper part of the great sofa, which made a comfortable bed, and laid the sheets and blankets. Next, at his master's orders, he brought a jug of water, a glass, a plate of biscuits, and a dish of fruit.

M. Fauville ate a couple of biscuits and then cut a dessert-apple. It was not ripe. He took two others, felt them, and, not thinking them good, put them back as well. Then he peeled a pear and ate it.

"You can leave the fruit dish," he said to his man. "I shall be glad of it, if I am hungry during the night ... Oh, I was forgetting! These two gentlemen are staying. Don't mention it to anybody. And, in the morning, don't come until I ring."

The man placed the fruit dish on the table before retiring. Perenna, who was noticing everything, and who was afterward to remember every smallest detail of that evening, which his memory recorded with a sort of mechanical faithfulness, counted three pears and four apples in the dish.

Meanwhile, Fauville went up the winding staircase, and, going along the gallery, reached the room where his son lay in bed.

"He's fast asleep," he said to Perenna, who had joined him.

The bedroom was a small one. The air was admitted by a special system of ventilation, for the dormer window was hermetically closed by a wooden shutter tightly nailed down.

"I took the precaution last year," Hippolyte Fauville explained. "I used to make my electrical experiments in this room and was afraid of being spied upon, so I closed the aperture opening on the roof."

And he added in a low voice:

"They have been prowling around me for a long time."

The two men went downstairs again.

Fauville looked at his watch.

"A quarter past ten: bedtime, I am exceedingly tired, and you will excuse me..."

It was arranged that Perenna and Mazeroux should make themselves comfortable in a couple of easy chairs which they carried into the passage between the study and the entrance hall. But, before bidding them good-night, Hippolyte Fauville, who, although greatly excited, had appeared until then to retain his self-control, was seized with a sudden attack of weakness. He uttered a faint cry. Don Luis turned round and saw the sweat pouring like gleaming water down his face and neck, while he shook with fever and anguish.

"What's the matter?" asked Perenna.

"I'm frightened! I'm frightened!" he said.

"This is madness!" cried Don Luis. "Aren't we here, the two of us? We can easily spend the night with you, if you prefer, by your bedside."

Fauville replied by shaking Perenna violently by the shoulder, and, with distorted features, stammering:

"If there were ten of you—if there were twenty of you with me, you need not think that it would spoil their schemes! They can do anything they please, do you hear, anything! They have already killed Inspector Vérot—they will kill me—and they will kill my son. Oh, the blackguards! My God, take pity on me! The awful terror of it! The pain I suffer!"

He had fallen on his knees and was striking his breast and repeating:

"O God, have pity on me! I can't die! I can't let my son die! Have pity on me, I beseech Thee!"

He sprang to his feet and led Perenna to a glass-fronted case, which he rolled back on its brass castors, revealing a small safe built into the wall.

"You will find my whole story here, written up day by day for the past three years. If anything should happen to me, revenge will be easy."

He hurriedly turned the letters of the padlock and, with a key which he took from his pocket, opened the safe.

It was three fourths empty; but on one of the shelves, between some piles of papers, was a diary bound in drab cloth, with a rubber band round it. He took the diary, and, emphasizing his words, said:

"There, look, it's all in here. With this, the hideous business can be reconstructed ... There are my suspicions first and then my certainties ... Everything, everything ... how to trap them and how to do for them ... You'll remember, won't you? A diary bound in drab cloth ... I'm putting it back in the safe."

Gradually his calmness returned. He pushed back the glass case, tidied a few papers, switched on the electric lamp above his bed, put out the lights in the middle of the ceiling, and asked Don Luis and Mazeroux to leave him.

Don Luis, who was walking round the room and examining the iron shutters of the two windows, noticed a door opposite the entrance door and asked the engineer about it.

"I use it for my regular clients," said Fauville, "and sometimes I go out that way."

"Does it open on the garden?"

"Yes."

"Is it properly closed?"

"You can see for yourself; it's locked and bolted with a safety bolt. Both keys are on my bunch; so is the key of the garden gate."

He placed the bunch of keys on the table with his pocket-book and, after first winding it, his watch.

Don Luis, without troubling to ask permission, took the keys and unfastened the lock and the bolt. A flight of three steps brought him to the garden. He followed the length of the narrow border. Through the ivy he saw and heard the two policemen pacing up and down the boulevard. He tried the lock of the gate. It was fastened.

"Everything's all right," he said when he returned, "and you can be easy. Good-night."

"Good-night," said the engineer, seeing Perenna and Mazeroux out.

Between his study and the passage were two doors, one of which was padded and covered with oilcloth. On the other side, the passage was separated from the hall by a heavy curtain.

"You can go to sleep," said Perenna to his companion. "I'll sit up."

"But surely, Chief, you don't think that anything's going to happen!"

"I don't think so, seeing the precautions which we've taken. But, knowing Inspector Vérot as you did, do you think he was the man to imagine things?"

"No, Chief."

"Well, you know what he prophesied. That means that he had his reasons for doing so. And therefore I shall keep my eyes open."

"We'll take it in turns, Chief; wake me when it's my time to watch."

Seated motionlessly, side by side, they exchanged an occasional remark. Soon after, Mazeroux fell asleep. Don Luis remained in his chair without moving, his ears pricked up. Everything was quiet in the house. Outside, from time to time, the sound of a motor car or of a cab rolled by. He could also hear the late trains on the Auteuil line.

He rose several times and went up to the door. Not a sound. Hippolyte Fauville was evidently asleep.

"Capital!" said Perenna to himself. "The boulevard is watched. No one can enter the room except by this way. So there is nothing to fear."

At two o'clock in the morning a car stopped outside the house, and one of the manservants, who must have been waiting in the kitchen, hastened to the front door. Perenna switched off the light in the passage, and, drawing the curtain slightly aside, saw Mme. Fauville enter, followed by Silvestre.

She went up. The lights on the staircase were put out. For half an hour or so there was a sound overhead of voices and of chairs moving. Then all was silence.

And, amid this silence, Perenna felt an unspeakable anguish arise within him, he could not tell why. But it was so violent, the impression became so acute, that he muttered:

"I shall go and see if he's asleep. I don't expect that he has bolted the doors."

He had only to push both doors to open them; and, with his electric lantern in his hand, he went up to the bed. Hippolyte Fauville was sleeping with his face turned to the wall.

Perenna gave a smile of relief. He returned to the passage and, shaking Mazeroux:

"Your turn, Alexandre."

"No news, Chief?"

"No, none; he's asleep."

"How do you know?"

"I've had a look at him."

"That's funny; I never heard you. It's true, though, I've slept like a pig."

He followed Perenna into the study, and Perenna said:

"Sit down and don't wake him. I shall take forty winks."

He had one more turn at sentry duty. But, even while dozing, he remained conscious of all that happened around him. A clock struck the hours with a low chime; and each time Perenna counted the strokes. Then came the life outside awakening, the rattle of the milk-carts, the whistle of the early suburban trains.

People began to stir inside the house. The daylight trickled in through the crannies of the shutters, and the room gradually became filled with light.

"Let's go away," said Sergeant Mazeroux. "It would be better for him not to find us here."

"Hold your tongue!" said Don Luis, with an imperious gesture.

"Why?"

"You'll wake him up."

"But you can see I'm not waking him," said Mazeroux, without lowering his tone.

"That's true, that's true," whispered Don Luis, astonished that the sound of that voice had not disturbed the sleeper.

And he felt himself overcome with the same anguish that had seized upon him in the middle of the night, a more clearly defined anguish, although he would not, although he dared not, try to realize the reason of it.

"What's the matter with you, Chief? You're looking like nothing on earth. What is it?"

"Nothing—nothing. I'm frightened..."

Mazeroux shuddered.

"Frightened of what? You say that just as he did last night."

"Yes ... yes ... and for the same reason."

"But—?"

"Don't you understand? Don't you understand that I'm wondering—?"

"No; what?"

"If he's not dead!"

"But you're mad, Chief!"

"No ... I don't know ... Only, only ... I have an impression of death..."

Lantern in hand, he stood as one paralyzed, opposite the bed; and he who was afraid of nothing in the world had not the courage to throw the light on Hippolyte Fauville's face. A terrifying silence rose and filled the room.

"Oh, Chief, he's not moving!"

"I know ... I know ... and I now see that he has not moved once during the night. And that's what frightens me."

He had to make a real effort in order to step forward. He was now almost touching the bed.

The engineer did not appear to breathe.

This time, Perenna resolutely took hold of his hand.

It was icy cold.

Don Luis at once recovered all his self-possession.

"The window! Open the window!" he cried.

And, when the light flooded the room, he saw the face of Hippolyte Fauville all swollen, stained with brown patches.

"Oh," he said, under his breath, "he's dead!"

"Dash it all! Dash it all!" spluttered the detective sergeant.

For two or three minutes they stood petrified, stupefied, staggered at the sight of this most astonishing and mysterious phenomenon. Then a sudden idea made Perenna start. He flew up the winding staircase, rushed along the gallery, and darted into the attic.

Edmond, Hippolyte Fauville's son, lay stiff and stark on his bed, with a cadaverous face, dead, too.