The Eight Strokes of the Clock (24 page)

He was greatly agitated. He kept on walking to and fro in a small empty space surrounded by a circle of piled-up furniture, at which he hit out idiotically, at the risk of bringing it down.

Hortense felt that she had the whip hand of him; and, profiting by his confusion, she said, suddenly, in a commanding and threatening tone:

“Where is the thing? You must give it back to me. I insist upon it.”

Pancaldi gave way to a moment of despair. He folded his hands and mumbled a few words of entreaty. Then, defeated and suddenly resigned, he said, more distinctly:

“You insist? …”

“I do. You must give it to me.”

“Yes, yes, I must … I agree.”

“Speak!” she ordered, more harshly still.

“Speak, no, but write: I will write my secret … And that will be the end of me.”

He turned to his desk and feverishly wrote a few lines on a sheet of paper, which he put into an envelope and sealed it:

“See,” he said, “here’s my secret … It was my whole life …”

And, so saying, he suddenly pressed against his temple a revolver which he had produced from under a pile of papers and fired.

With a quick movement, Hortense struck up his arm. The bullet struck the mirror of a cheval glass. But Pancaldi collapsed and began to groan, as though he were wounded.

Hortense made a great effort not to lose her composure:

“Rénine warned me,” she reflected. “The man’s a playactor. He has kept the envelope. He has kept his revolver, I won’t be taken in by him.”

Nevertheless, she realized that, despite his apparent calmness, the attempt at suicide and the revolver shot had completely unnerved her. All her energies were dispersed, like the sticks of a bundle whose string has been cut, and she had a painful impression that the man, who was grovelling at her feet, was in reality slowly getting the better of her.

She sat down, exhausted. As Rénine had foretold, the duel had not lasted longer than a few minutes, but it was she who had succumbed, thanks to her feminine nerves and at the very moment when she felt entitled to believe that she had won.

The man Pancaldi was fully aware of this, and, without troubling to invent a transition, he ceased his jeremiads, leapt to his feet, cut a sort of agile caper before Hortense’ eyes and cried, in a jeering tone:

“Now we are going to have a little chat, but it would be a nuisance to be at the mercy of the first passing customer, wouldn’t it?”

He ran to the street door, opened it and pulled down the iron shutter which closed the shop. Then, still hopping and skipping, he came back to Hortense:

“Oof! I really thought I was done for! One more effort, madam, and you would have pulled it off. But then I’m such a simple chap! It seemed to me that you had come from the back of beyond, as an emissary of Providence, to call me to account; and, like a fool, I was about to give the thing back … Ah, Mlle. Hortense—let me call you so: I used to know you by that name—Mlle. Hortense, what you lack, to use a vulgar expression, is gut.”

He sat down beside her and, with a malicious look, said, savagely:

“The time has come to speak out. Who contrived this business? Not you, eh? It’s not in your style. Then who? … I have always been honest in my life, scrupulously honest … except once … in the matter of that clasp. And, whereas I thought the story was buried and forgotten, here it is suddenly raked up again. Why? That’s what I want to know.”

Hortense was no longer even attempting to fight. He was bringing to bear upon her all his virile strength, all his spite, all his fears, all the threats expressed in his furious gestures and on his features, which were both ridiculous and evil:

“Speak, I want to know. If I have a secret foe, let me defend myself against him! Who is he? Who sent you here? Who urged you to take action? Is it a rival incensed by my good luck, who wants in his turn to benefit by the clasp? Speak, can’t you, damn it all … or, I swear by Heaven, I’ll make you! …”

She had an idea that he was reaching out for his revolver and stepped back, holding her arms before her, in the hope of escaping.

They thus struggled against each other, and Hortense, who was becoming more and more frightened, not so much of the attack as of her assailant’s distorted face, was beginning to scream, when Pancaldi suddenly stood motionless, with his arms before him, his fingers outstretched and his eyes staring above Hortense’s head:

“Who’s there? How did you get in?” he asked, in a stifled voice.

Hortense did not even need to turn round to feel assured that Rénine was coming to her assistance and that it was his inexplicable appearance that was causing the dealer such dismay. As a matter of fact, a slender figure stole through a heap of easy chairs and sofas, and Rénine came forward with a tranquil step.

“Who are you?” repeated Pancaldi. “Where do you come from?”

“From up there,” he said, very amiably, pointing to the ceiling.

“From up there?”

“Yes, from the first floor. I have been the tenant of the floor above this for the past three months. I heard a noise just now. Someone was calling out for help. So I came down.”

“But how did you get in here?”

“By the staircase.”

“What staircase?”

“The iron staircase, at the end of the shop. The man who owned it before you had a flat on my floor and used to go up and down by that hidden staircase. You had the door shut off. I opened it.”

“But by what right, sir? It amounts to breaking in.”

“Breaking in is allowed, when there’s a fellow creature to be rescued.”

“Once more, who are you?”

“Prince Rénine … and a friend of this lady’s,” said Rénine, bending over Hortense and kissing her hand.

Pancaldi seemed to be choking, and mumbled:

“Oh, I understand! … You instigated the plot … it was you who sent the lady …”

“It was, M. Pancaldi, it was!”

“And what are your intentions?”

“My intentions are irreproachable. No violence. Simply a little interview. When that is over, you will hand over what I in my turn have come to fetch.”

“What?”

“The clasp.”

“That, never!” shouted the dealer.

“Don’t say no. It’s a foregone conclusion.”

“No power on earth, sir, can compel me to do such a thing!”

“Shall we send for your wife? Madame Pancaldi will perhaps realize the position better than you do.”

The idea of no longer being alone with this unexpected adversary seemed to appeal to Pancaldi. There was a bell on the table beside him. He struck it three times.

“Capital!” exclaimed Rénine “You see, my dear, M. Pancaldi is becoming quite amiable. Not a trace left of the devil broken loose who was going for you just now. No, M. Pancaldi only has to find himself dealing with a man to recover his qualities of courtesy and kindness. A perfect sheep! Which does not mean that things will go quite of themselves. Far from it! There’s no more obstinate animal than a sheep …”

Right at the end of the shop, between the dealer’s writing desk and the winding staircase, a curtain was raised, admitting a woman who was holding a door open. She might have been thirty years of age. Very simply dressed, she looked, with the apron on her, more like a cook than like the mistress of a household. But she had an attractive face and a pleasing figure.

Hortense, who had followed Rénine, was surprised to recognize her as a maid whom she had had in her service when a girl:

“What! Is that you, Lucienne? Are you Madame Pancaldi?”

The newcomer looked at her, recognized her also and seemed embarrassed. Rénine said to her:

“Your husband and I need your assistance, Madame Pancaldi, to settle a rather complicated matter, a matter in which you played an important part …”

She came forward without a word, obviously ill at ease, asking her husband, who did not take his eyes off her:

“What is it? … What do they want with me? … What is he referring to?”

“It’s about the clasp!” Pancaldi whispered, under his breath.

These few words were enough to make Madame Pancaldi realize to the full the seriousness of her position. And she did not try to keep her countenance or to retort with futile protests. She sank into a chair, sighing:

“Oh, that’s it! … I understand … Mlle. Hortense has found the track … Oh, it’s all up with us!”

There was a moment’s respite. The struggle between the adversaries had hardly begun, before the husband and wife adopted the attitude of defeated persons whose only hope lay in the victor’s clemency. Staring motionless before her, Madame Pancaldi began to cry. Rénine bent over her and said:

“Do you mind if we go over the case from the beginning? We shall then see things more clearly, and I am sure that our interview will lead to a perfectly natural solution … This is how things happened: nine years ago, when you were lady’s maid to Mlle. Hortense in the country, you made the acquaintance of M. Pancaldi, who soon became your lover. You were both of you Corsicans, in other words, you came from a country where superstitions are very strong and where questions of good and bad luck, the evil eye, and spells and charms exert a profound influence over the lives of one and all. Now it was said that your young mistress’ clasp had always brought luck to its owners. That was why, in a weak moment prompted by M. Pancaldi, you stole the clasp. Six months afterwards, you became Madame Pancaldi … That is your whole story, is it not, told in a few sentences? The whole story of two people who would have remained honest members of society, if they had been able to resist that casual temptation? … I need not tell you how you both succeeded in life and how, possessing the talisman, believing its powers and trusting in yourselves, you rose to the first rank of antiquarians. Today, well-off, owning this shop, ‘The Mercury,’ you attribute the success of your undertakings to that clasp. To lose it would to your eyes spell bankruptcy and poverty. Your whole life has been centred upon it. It is your fetish. It is the little household god who watches over you and guides your steps. It is there, somewhere, hidden in this jungle, and no one of course would ever have suspected anything—for I repeat, you are decent people, but for this one lapse—if an accident had not led me to look into your affairs.”

Rénine paused and continued:

“That was two months ago, two months of minute investigations, which presented no difficulty to me, because, having discovered your trail, I hired the flat overhead and was able to use that staircase … but, all the same, two months wasted to a certain extent because I have not yet succeeded. And Heaven knows how I have ransacked this shop of yours! There is not a piece of furniture that I have left unsearched, not a plank in the floor that I have not inspected. All to no purpose. Yes, there was one thing, an incidental discovery. In a secret recess in your writing table, Pancaldi, I turned up a little account book in which you have set down your remorse, your uneasiness, your fear of punishment and your dread of God’s wrath … It was highly imprudent of you, Pancaldi! People don’t write such confessions! And, above all, they don’t leave them lying about! Be this as it may, I read them and I noted one passage, which struck me as particularly important and was of use to me in preparing my plan of campaign: ‘Should she come to me, the woman whom I robbed, should she come to me as I saw her in her garden, while Lucienne was taking the clasp; should she appear to me wearing the blue gown and the toque of red leaves, with the jet necklace and the whip of three plaited rushes which she was carrying that day; should she appear to me thus and say: “I have come to claim my property,” then I shall understand that her conduct is inspired from on high and that I must obey the decree of Providence.’ That is what is written in your book, Pancaldi, and it explains the conduct of the lady whom you call Mlle. Hortense. Acting on my instructions and in accordance with the setting thought out by yourself, she came to you, from the back of beyond, to use your own expression. A little more self-possession on her part, and you know that she would have won the day. Unfortunately, you are a wonderful actor; your sham suicide put her out; and you understood that this was not a decree of Providence, but simply an offensive on the part of your former victim. I had no choice, therefore, but to intervene. Here I am … And now let’s finish the business. Pancaldi, that clasp!”

“No,” said the dealer, who seemed to recover all his energy at the very thought of restoring the clasp.

“And you, Madame Pancaldi.”

“I don’t know where it is,” the wife declared.

“Very well. Then let us come to deeds. Madame Pancaldi, you have a son of seven whom you love with all your heart. This is Thursday and, as on every Thursday, your little boy is to come home alone from his aunt’s. Two of my friends are posted on the road by which he returns and, in the absence of instructions to the contrary, will kidnap him as he passes.”

Madame Pancaldi lost her head at once:

“My son! Oh, please, please … not that! … I swear that I know nothing. My husband would never consent to confide in me.”

Rénine continued:

“Next point. This evening, I shall lodge an information with the public prosecutor. Evidence: the confessions in the account book. Consequences: action by the police, search of the premises and the rest.”

Pancaldi was silent. The others had a feeling that all these threats did not affect him and that, protected by his fetish, he believed himself to be invulnerable. But his wife fell on her knees at Rénine’s feet and stammered:

“No, no … I entreat you! … It would mean going to prison and I don’t want to go! … And then my son! … Oh, I entreat you! …”

Hortense, seized with compassion, took Rénine to one side:

“Poor woman! Let me intercede for her.”

“Set your mind at rest,” he said. “Nothing is going to happen to her son.”

“But your two friends?”

“Sheer bluff.”

“Your application to the public prosecutor?”

“A mere threat.”

“Then what are you trying to do?”

“To frighten them out of their wits, in the hope of making them drop a remark, a word, which will tell us what we want to know. We’ve tried every other means. This is the last, and it is a method which, I find, nearly always succeeds. Remember our adventures.”