The Eight Strokes of the Clock, Maurice Leblanc [summer books TXT] 📗

Madame d’Imbleval to separate for a time? That will enable you all to see matters more clearly and to decide in perfect freedom what is to be done. Come with us, monsieur. The most pressing thing is to save Geneviève Aymard, your fiancée.”

Jean Louis stood perplexed and undecided. Rénine turned to the two women:

“That is your opinion too, I am sure, ladies?”

They nodded.

“You see, monsieur,” he said to Jean Louis, “we are all agreed. In great crises, there is nothing like separation⁠ ⁠… a few days’ respite. Quickly now, monsieur.”

And, without giving him time to hesitate, he drove him towards his bedroom to pack up.

Half an hour later, Jean Louis left the manor-house with his new friends.

“And he won’t go back until he’s married,” said Rénine to Hortense, as they were waiting at Carhaix station, to which the car had taken them, while Jean Louis was attending to his luggage. “Everything’s for the best. Are you satisfied?”

“Yes, Geneviève will be glad,” she replied, absently.

When they had taken their seats in the train, Rénine and she repaired to the dining-car. Rénine, who had asked Hortense several questions to which she had replied only in monosyllables, protested:

“What’s the matter with you, my child? You look worried!”

“I? Not at all!”

“Yes, yes, I know you. Now, no secrets, no mysteries!”

She smiled:

“Well, since you insist on knowing if I am satisfied, I am bound to admit that of course I am⁠ ⁠… as regards my friend Geneviève, but that, in another respect⁠—from the point of view of the adventure⁠—I have an uncomfortable sort of feeling.⁠ ⁠…”

“To speak frankly, I haven’t ‘staggered’ you this time?”

“Not very much.”

“I seem to you to have played a secondary part. For, after all, what have I done? We arrived. We listened to Jean Louis’ tale of woe. I had a midwife fetched. And that was all.”

“Exactly. I want to know if that was all; and I’m not quite sure. To tell you the truth, our other adventures left behind them an impression which was⁠—how shall I put it?⁠—more definite, clearer.”

“And this one strikes you as obscure?”

“Obscure, yes, and incomplete.”

“But in what way?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps it has something to do with that woman’s confession. Yes, very likely that is it. It was all so unexpected and so short.”

“Well, of course, I cut it short, as you can readily imagine!” said Rénine, laughing. “We didn’t want too many explanations.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, if she had given her explanations with too much detail, we should have ended by doubting what she was telling us.”

“By doubting it?”

“Well, hang it all, the story is a trifle farfetched! That fellow arriving at night, with a live baby in his pocket, and going away with a dead one: the thing hardly holds water. But you see, my dear, I hadn’t much time to coach the unfortunate woman in her part.”

Hortense stared at him in amazement:

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Well, you know how dull-witted these countrywomen are. And she and I had no time to spare. So we worked out a little scene in a hurry⁠ ⁠… and she really didn’t act it so badly. It was all in the right key: terror, tremolo, tears.⁠ ⁠…”

“Is it possible?” murmured Hortense. “Is it possible? You had seen her beforehand?”

“I had to, of course.”

“But when?”

“This morning, when we arrived. While you were titivating yourself at the hotel at Carhaix, I was running round to see what information I could pick up. As you may imagine, everybody in the district knows the d’Imbleval-Vaurois story. I was at once directed to the former midwife, Mlle. Boussignol. With Mlle. Boussignol it did not take long. Three minutes to settle a new version of what had happened and ten thousand francs to induce her to repeat that⁠ ⁠… more or less credible⁠ ⁠… version to the people at the manor-house.”

“A quite incredible version!”

“Not so bad as all that, my child, seeing that you believed it⁠ ⁠… and the others too. And that was the essential thing. What I had to do was to demolish at one blow a truth which had been twenty-seven years in existence and which was all the more firmly established because it was founded on actual facts. That was why I went for it with all my might and attacked it by sheer force of eloquence. Impossible to identify the children? I deny it. Inevitable confusion? It’s not true. ‘You’re all three,’ I say, ‘the victims of something which I don’t know but which it is your duty to clear up!’ ‘That’s easily done,’ says Jean Louis, whose conviction is at once shaken. ‘Let’s send for Mlle. Boussignol.’ ‘Right! Let’s send for her.’ Whereupon Mlle. Boussignol arrives and mumbles out the little speech which I have taught her. Sensation! General stupefaction⁠ ⁠… of which I take advantage to carry off our young man!”

Hortense shook her head:

“But they’ll get over it, all three of them, on thinking!”

“Never! Never! They will have their doubts, perhaps. But they will never consent to feel certain! They will never agree to think! Use your imagination! Here are three people whom I have rescued from the hell in which they have been floundering for a quarter of a century. Do you think they’re going back to it? Here are three people who, from weakness or a false sense of duty, had not the courage to escape. Do you think that they won’t cling like grim death to the liberty which I’m giving them? Nonsense! Why, they would have swallowed a hoax twice as difficult to digest as that which Mlle. Boussignol dished up for them! After all, my version was no more absurd than the truth. On the contrary. And they swallowed it whole! Look at this: before we left, I heard Madame d’Imbleval and Madame Vaurois speak of an immediate removal. They were already becoming quite affectionate at the thought of seeing the last of each other.”

“But what about Jean Louis?”

“Jean Louis? Why, he was fed up with his two mothers! By Jingo, one can’t do with two mothers in a lifetime! What a situation! And when