The Eight Strokes of the Clock (7 page)

“But this is awful! And your proofs?”

“Not the shadow of a proof … I was hoping to trip him up. But he’s kept his feet, the rascal!”

“Still, you’re certain it’s he?”

“It can’t be anyone else. I had an intuition at the very outset, and I’ve not taken my eyes off him since. I have seen his anxiety increasing as my investigations seemed to centre on him and concern him more closely. Now I know.”

“And he’s in love with Madame Aubrieux?”

“In logic, he’s bound to be. But so far we have only hypothetical suppositions, or rather certainties which are personal to myself. We shall never intercept the guillotine with those. Ah, if we could only find the banknotes! Given the banknotes, M. Dudouis would act. Without them, he will laugh in my face.”

“What then?” murmured Hortense, in anguished accents.

He did not reply. He walked up and down the room, assuming an air of gaiety and rubbing his hands. All was going so well! It was really a treat to take up a case which, so to speak, worked itself out automatically.

“Suppose we went on to the prefecture, M. Morisseau? The chief must be there by now. And, having gone so far, we may as well finish. Will M. Dutreuil come with us?”

“Why not?” said Dutreuil, arrogantly.

But, just as Rénine was opening the door, there was a noise in the passage and the manager ran up, waving his arms:

“Is M. Dutreuil still here? … M. Dutreuil, your flat is on fire! … A man outside told us. He saw it from the square.”

The young man’s eyes lit up. For perhaps half a second his mouth was twisted by a smile, which Rénine noticed:

“Oh, you ruffian!” he cried. “You’ve given yourself away, my beauty! It was you who set fire to the place upstairs, and now the notes are burning.”

He blocked his exit.

“Let me pass,” shouted Dutreuil. “There’s a fire and no one can get in, because no one else has a key. Here it is. Let me pass, damn it!”

Rénine snatched the key from his hand and, holding him by the collar of his coat:

“Don’t you move, my fine fellow! The game’s up! You precious blackguard! M. Morisseau, will you give orders to the sergeant not to let him out of his sight and to blow out his brains if he tries to get away? Sergeant, we rely on you! Put a bullet into him, if necessary! …”

He hurried up the stairs, followed by Hortense and the chief inspector, who was protesting rather peevishly:

“But, I say, look here, it wasn’t he who set the place on fire! How do you make out that he set it on fire, seeing that he never left us?”

“Why, he set it on fire beforehand, to be sure!”

“How? I ask you, how?”

“How do I know? But a fire doesn’t break out like that, for no reason at all, at the very moment when a man wants to burn compromising papers.”

They heard a commotion upstairs. It was the waiters of the restaurant trying to burst the door open. An acrid smell filled the well of the staircase.

Rénine reached the top floor:

“By your leave, friends. I have the key.”

He inserted it in the lock and opened the door.

He was met by a gust of smoke so dense that one might well have supposed the whole floor to be ablaze. Rénine at once saw that the fire had gone out of its own accord, for lack of fuel, and that there were no more flames.

“M. Morisseau, you won’t let anyone come in with us, will you? An intruder might spoil everything. Bolt the door, that will be best.”

He stepped into the front room, where the fire had obviously had its chief centre. The furniture, the walls and the ceiling, though blackened by the smoke, had not been touched. As a matter of fact, the fire was confined to a blaze of papers, which was still burning in the middle of the room, in front of the window.

Rénine struck his forehead:

“What a fool I am! What an unspeakable ass!”

“Why?” asked the inspector.

“The hatbox, of course! The cardboard hatbox, which was standing on the table. That’s where he hid the notes. They were there all through our search.”

“Impossible!”

“Why, yes, we always overlook that particular hiding place, the one just under our eyes, within reach of our hands! How could one imagine that a thief would leave sixty thousand francs in an open cardboard box, in which he places his hat when he comes in, with an absent-minded air? That’s just the one place we don’t look in … Well played, M. Dutreuil!”

The inspector, who remained incredulous, repeated:

“No, no, impossible! We were with him, and he could not have started the fire himself.”

“Everything was prepared beforehand on the supposition that there might be an alarm … The hatbox … the tissue paper … the banknotes: they must all have been steeped in some inflammable liquid. He must have thrown a match, a chemical preparation or what not into it, as we were leaving.”

“But we should have seen him, hang it all! And then is it credible that a man who has committed a murder for the sake of sixty thousand francs should do away with the money in this way? If the hiding place was such a good one—and it was, because we never discovered it—why this useless destruction?”

“He got frightened, M. Morisseau. Remember that his head is at stake and he knows it. Anything rather than the guillotine, and they—the banknotes—were the only proof which we had against him. How could he have left them where they were?”

Morisseau was flabbergasted:

“What! The only proof?”

“Why, obviously!”

“But your witnesses? Your evidence? All that you were going to tell the chief?”

“Mere bluff.”

“Well, upon my word,” growled the bewildered inspector, “you’re a cool customer!”

“Would you have taken action without my bluff?”

“No.”

“Then what more do you want?”

Rénine stooped to stir the ashes. But there was nothing left, not even those remnants of stiff paper which still retain their shape.

“Nothing,” he said. “It’s queer, all the same! How the deuce did he manage to set the thing alight?”

He stood up, looking attentively about him. Hortense had a feeling that he was making his supreme effort and that, after this last struggle in the dark, he would either have devised his plan of victory or admit that he was beaten.

Faltering with anxiety, she asked:

“It’s all up, isn’t it?”

“No, no,” he said, thoughtfully, “it’s not all up. It was, a few seconds ago. But now there is a gleam of light … and one that gives me hope.”

“God grant that it may be justified!”

“We must go slowly,” he said. “It is only an attempt, but a fine, a very fine attempt, and it may succeed.”

He was silent for a moment; then, with an amused smile and a click of the tongue, he said:

“An infernally clever fellow, that Dutreuil! His trick of burning the notes: what a fertile imagination! And what coolness! A pretty dance the beggar has led me! He’s a master!”

He fetched a broom from the kitchen and swept a part of the ashes into the next room, returning with a hatbox of the same size and appearance as the one which had been burnt. After crumpling the tissue paper with which it was filled, he placed the hatbox on the little table and set fire to it with a match.

It burst into flames, which he extinguished when they had consumed half the cardboard and nearly all the paper. Then he took from an inner pocket of his waistcoat a bundle of banknotes and selected six, which he burnt almost completely, arranging the remains and hiding the rest of the notes at the bottom of the box, among the ashes and the blackened bits of paper:

“M. Morisseau,” he said, when he had done, “I am asking for your assistance for the last time. Go and fetch Dutreuil. Tell him just this: ‘You are unmasked. The notes did not catch fire. Come with me.’ And bring him up here.”

Despite his hesitation and his fear of exceeding his instructions from the head of the detective service, the chief inspector was powerless to throw off the ascendancy which Rénine had acquired over him. He left the room.

Rénine turned to Hortense:

“Do you understand my plan of battle?”

“Yes,” she said, “but it’s a dangerous experiment. Do you think that Dutreuil will fall into the trap?”

“Everything depends on the state of his nerves and the degree of demoralization to which he is reduced. A surprise attack may very well do for him.”

“Nevertheless, suppose he recognizes by some sign that the box has been changed?”

“Oh, of course, he has a few chances in his favour! The fellow is much more cunning than I thought and quite capable of wriggling out of the trap. On the other hand, however, how uneasy he must be! How the blood must be buzzing in his ears and obscuring his sight! No, I don’t think that he will avoid the trap … He will give in … He will give in …”

They exchanged no more words. Rénine did not move. Hortense was stirred to the very depths of her being. The life of an innocent man hung trembling in the balance. An error of judgment, a little bad luck … and, twelve hours later, Jacques Aubrieux would be put to death. And together with a horrible anguish she experienced, in spite of all, a feeling of eager curiosity. What was Prince Rénine going to do? What would be the outcome of the experiment on which he was venturing? What resistance would Gaston Dutreuil offer? She lived through one of those minutes of superhuman tension in which life becomes intensified until it reaches its utmost value.

They heard footsteps on the stairs, the footsteps of men in a hurry. The sound drew nearer. They were reaching the top floor.

Hortense looked at her companion. He had stood up and was listening, his features already transfigured by action. The footsteps were now echoing in the passage. Then, suddenly, he ran to the door and cried:

“Quick! Let’s make an end of it!”

Two or three detectives and a couple of waiters entered. He caught hold of Dutreuil in the midst of the detectives and pulled him by the arm, gaily exclaiming:

“Well done, old man! That trick of yours with the table and the water-bottle was really splendid! A masterpiece, on my word! Only, it didn’t come off!”

“What do you mean? What’s the matter?” mumbled Gaston Dutreuil, staggering.

“What I say: the fire burnt only half the tissue paper and the hatbox; and, though some of the banknotes were destroyed, like the tissue paper, the others are there, at the bottom … You understand? The long-sought notes, the great proof of the murder: they’re there, where you hid them … As chance would have it, they’ve escaped burning … Here, look: there are the numbers; you can check them … Oh, you’re done for, done for, my beauty!”

The young man drew himself up stiffly. His eyelids quivered. He did not accept Rénine’s invitation to look; he examined neither the hatbox nor the banknotes. From the first moment, without taking the time to reflect and before his instinct could warn him, he believed what he was told and collapsed heavily into a chair, weeping.

The surprise attack, to use Rénine’s expression, had succeeded. On seeing all his plans baffled and the enemy master of his secrets, the wretched man had neither the strength nor the perspicacity necessary to defend himself. He threw up the sponge.

Rénine gave him no time to breathe:

“Capital! You’re saving your head, and that’s all, my good youth! Write down your confession and get it off your chest. Here’s a fountain pen … The luck has been against you, I admit. It was devilishly well thought out, your trick of the last moment. You had the banknotes, which were in your way and which you wanted to destroy. Nothing simpler. You take a big, round-bellied water bottle and stand it on the windowsill. It acts as a burning glass, concentrating the rays of the sun on the cardboard and tissue paper, all nicely prepared. Ten minutes later, it bursts into flames. A splendid idea! And, like all great discoveries, it came quite by chance, what? It reminds one of Newton’s apple … One day, the sun, passing through the water in that bottle, must have set fire to a scrap of cotton or the head of a match; and, as you had the sun at your disposal just now, you said to yourself, ‘Now’s the time,’ and stood the bottle in the right position. My congratulations, Gaston! … Look, here’s a sheet of paper. Write down: ‘It was I who murdered M. Guillaume.’ Write, I tell you!”

Leaning over the young man, with all his implacable force of will, he compelled him to write, guiding his hand and dictating the sentences. Dutreuil, exhausted, at the end of his strength, wrote as he was told.

“Here’s the confession, Mr. Chief Inspector,” said Rénine. “You will be good enough to take it to M. Dudouis. These gentlemen,” turning to the waiters, from the restaurant, “will, I am sure, consent to serve as witnesses.”

And, seeing that Dutreuil, overwhelmed by what had happened, did not move, he gave him a shake:

“Hi, you, look alive! Now that you’ve been fool enough to confess, make an end of the job, my gentle idiot!”

The others watched him, standing in front of him.

“Obviously,” Rénine continued, “you’re only a simpleton. The hatbox was fairly burnt to ashes; so were the notes. That hatbox, my dear fellow, is a different one, and those notes belong to me. I even burnt six of them to make you swallow the stunt. And you couldn’t make out what had happened. What an owl you must be! To furnish me with evidence at the last moment, when I hadn’t a single proof of my own! And such evidence! A written confession! Written before witnesses! … Look here, my man, if they do cut off your head—as I sincerely hope they will—upon my word, you’ll have jolly well deserved it! Good-bye, Dutreuil!”

Downstairs, in the street, Rénine asked Hortense Daniel to take the car, go to Madeleine Aubrieux and tell her what had happened.

“And you?” asked Hortense.

“I have a lot to do … urgent appointments …”

“And you deny yourself the pleasure of bringing the good news?”

“It’s one of the pleasures that pall upon one. The only pleasure that never flags is that of the fight itself. Afterwards, things cease to be interesting.”

She took his hand and for a moment held it in both her own. She would have liked to express all her admiration to that strange man, who seemed to do good as a sort of game and who did it with something like genius. But she was unable to speak. All these rapid incidents had upset her. Emotion constricted her throat and brought the tears to her eyes.