The Cask, Freeman Wills Crofts [snow like ashes series .txt] 📗

was dead. I saw the judgment of Heaven beginning. But that is for me alone. Her name, at any rate, is safe. You will never find it out.”

Boirac’s voice had fallen still lower. He spoke in a sort of toneless, numb way, as if mechanically, and yet his hearers could see that only his iron control prevented a breakdown.

“On that night of the dinner party,” he resumed, “I met Felix accidentally in the hall on his arrival, and brought him into my study to see an etching. It is true we there spoke of the cask which had just arrived with my group, but I gave him no information such as would have enabled him to obtain a similar one.

“All that has been found out of the events of that evening up to the time that I left the works is true. It is true I thought at first I would be kept till late, and afterwards got away comparatively early. I actually left the works about eleven, took the Metro and changed at Châtelet, as I said, but from there my statement to the police was false. No American friend clapped me on the back as I alighted there, nor did such a man exist at all. My walk with him to the Quai d’Orsay, our further stroll round the Place de la Concorde, his going by train to Orléans, and my walk home⁠—all these were pure inventions on my part, made to account for my time between eleven-fifteen and one. What really happened during this time was as follows:

“I changed at Châtelet, taking the Maillot train for Alma, and walked home down the Avenue. I must have reached my house about twenty minutes or a quarter to twelve.

“I took out my latchkey as I mounted the steps, and then I noticed that one of the slats of the venetian blind of the drawing-room window looking out towards the porch had caught up at one end, and a long, thin, triangular block of light shone out into the night. It was just on the level of my eyes and involuntarily I glanced through. What I saw inside stiffened me suddenly and I stood looking. In an armchair in the farther part of the room sat my wife, and bending closely over her, with his back towards me, was Felix. They were alone, and, as I watched, a plan entered my mind, and I stood transfixed with my pulses throbbing. Was there something between my wife and Felix? And if not, would it not suit my purpose to assume there was? I continued looking in and presently Felix rose to his feet and they began talking earnestly, Felix gesticulating freely, as was his habit. Then my wife left the room, returning in a few moments and handing him a small object. I was too far off to see what it was, but it seemed like a roll of banknotes. Felix put it carefully in his pocket and then they turned and walked towards the hall. In a few seconds the door opened and I shrank down into the shadows below the window sill.

“ ‘Oh, Léon,’ I heard my wife’s voice, and it seemed charged with emotion. ‘Oh, Léon, how good you are! How glad I am you have been able to do this!’

“Felix’s voice showed that he also was moved.

“ ‘Dear lady, is not such happiness to me? You know I am always at your service.’

“He moved down the steps.

“ ‘You’ll write?’

“ ‘Immediately,’ he answered, and was gone.

“As the door closed, a furious passion of hate burned up in me for this woman who had ruined my life⁠—who had not only ruined it, but who was still blocking out any chance of happiness I might have had. And also I furiously and jealously hated Felix for being the cause, however innocent, of my loss. And then suddenly I felt as if⁠—perhaps I should say I felt that⁠—a devil had entered and taken possession of me. I became deadly cold and I had the strange feeling that I myself was not really there, but that I was watching someone else. I slipped out my key, noiselessly opened the door, and followed my wife into the drawing-room. Her calm, nonchalant walk across the room roused me to still wilder fury. How well I knew her every motion. This was the way she would have turned to greet me when I arrived from the works, with cold politeness⁠—when it might have been so different.⁠ ⁠…

“She reached her chair in the corner of the room and turned to sit down. As she did so she saw me. She gave a little scream.

“ ‘Raoul, how you startled me,’ she cried. ‘Have you just arrived?’

“I threw off my hat and she saw my face.

“ ‘Raoul,’ she cried again, ‘what’s the matter? Why do you look like that?’

“I stood and looked at her. Outwardly I was calm, inwardly my blood whirled like molten metal through my veins and my mind was a seething fire.

“ ‘Nothing really,’ I said, and someone else seemed to be speaking in a voice I had never heard before, a hoarse, horrible voice. ‘Only a mere trifle. Only Madame entertaining her lover after her husband has come home.’

“She staggered back as if from a blow and collapsed into her chair, and turned her now pallid face to me.

“ ‘Oh!’ she cried in a trembling, choking voice. ‘Raoul, it’s not true! It’s not true, Raoul, I swear it! Don’t you believe me, Raoul?’

“I stepped close to her. My hate swelled up in a blinding, numbing, overwhelming passion. It must have shown in my eyes, for a sudden fear leapt into hers.

“She tried to scream, but her dry throat produced only a piteous little cry. Her face had grown ghastly. Drops of sweat grew on her brow.

“I was close by her now. Instinctively my hands went out. I seemed to feel her slender neck between them, with my thumbs pressing.⁠ ⁠… She read my purpose, for a hideous terror shone in her eyes. Dimly I