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

all this? I have not been to Le Havre. I came straight here. Abducted? Imprisoned? What nonsense!”

“Yes, imprisoned, in the same cave as the Happy Princess; and you broke off some branches to the right of the cave.”

“But how absurd! Who would have abducted me? I have no enemy.”

“There is a man in love with you: the one whom you were expecting just now.”

“Yes, my lover,” she said, proudly. “Have I not the right to receive whom I like?”

“You have the right; you are a free agent. But the man who comes to see you every evening is wanted by the police. His name is Georges Dalbrèque. He killed Bourguet the jeweller.”

The accusation made her start with indignation and she exclaimed:

“It’s a lie! An infamous fabrication of the newspapers! Georges was in Paris on the night of the murder. He can prove it.”

“He stole a motor car and forty thousand francs in notes.”

She retorted vehemently:

“The motorcar was taken back by his friends and the notes will be restored. He never touched them. My leaving for America had made him lose his head.”

“Very well. I am quite willing to believe everything that you say. But the police may show less faith in these statements and less indulgence.”

She became suddenly uneasy and faltered:

“The police.⁠ ⁠… There’s nothing to fear from them.⁠ ⁠… They won’t know.⁠ ⁠…”

“Where to find him? I succeeded, at all events. He’s working as a woodcutter, in the forest of Brotonne.”

“Yes, but⁠ ⁠… you⁠ ⁠… that was an accident⁠ ⁠… whereas the police.⁠ ⁠…”

The words left her lips with the greatest difficulty. Her voice was trembling. And suddenly she rushed at Rénine, stammering:

“He is arrested?⁠ ⁠… I am sure of it!⁠ ⁠… And you have come to tell me.⁠ ⁠… Arrested! Wounded! Dead perhaps?⁠ ⁠… Oh, please, please!⁠ ⁠…”

She had no strength left. All her pride, all the certainty of her great love gave way to an immense despair and she sobbed out.

“No, he’s not dead, is he? No, I feel that he’s not dead. Oh, sir, how unjust it all is! He’s the gentlest man, the best that ever lived. He has changed my whole life. Everything is different since I began to love him. And I love him so! I love him! I want to go to him. Take me to him. I want them to arrest me too. I love him.⁠ ⁠… I could not live without him.⁠ ⁠…”

An impulse of sympathy made Hortense put her arms around the girl’s neck and say warmly:

“Yes, come. He is not dead, I am sure, only wounded; and Prince Rénine will save him. You will, won’t you, Rénine?⁠ ⁠… Come. Make up a story for your servant: say that you’re going somewhere by train and that she is not to tell anybody. Be quick. Put on a wrap. We will save him, I swear we will.”

Rose Andrée went indoors and returned almost at once, disguised beyond recognition in a long cloak and a veil that shrouded her face; and they all took the road back to Routot. At the inn, Rose Andrée passed as a friend whom they had been to fetch in the neighbourhood and were taking to Paris with them. Rénine ran out to make enquiries and came back to the two women.

“It’s all right. Dalbrèque is alive. They have put him to bed in a private room at the mayor’s offices. He has a broken leg and a rather high temperature; but all the same they expect to move him to Rouen tomorrow and they have telephoned there for a motorcar.”

“And then?” asked Rose Andrée, anxiously.

Rénine smiled:

“Why, then we shall leave at daybreak. We shall take up our positions in a sunken road, rifle in hand, attack the motor-coach and carry off Georges!”

“Oh, don’t laugh!” she said, plaintively. “I am so unhappy!”

But the adventure seemed to amuse Rénine; and, when he was alone with Hortense, he exclaimed:

“You see what comes of preferring dishonour to death! But hang it all, who could have expected this? It isn’t a bit the way in which things happen in the pictures! Once the man of the woods had carried off his victim and considering that for three weeks there was no one to defend her, how could we imagine⁠—we who had been proceeding all along under the influence of the pictures⁠—that in the space of a few hours the victim would become a princess in love? Confound that Georges! I now understand the sly, humorous look which I surprised on his mobile features! He remembered, Georges did, and he didn’t care a hang for me! Oh, he tricked me nicely! And you, my dear, he tricked you too! And it was all the influence of the film. They show us, at the cinema, a brute beast, a sort of long-haired, ape-faced savage. What can a man like that be in real life? A brute, inevitably, don’t you agree? Well, he’s nothing of the kind; he’s a Don Juan! The humbug!”

“You will save him, won’t you?” said Hortense, in a beseeching tone.

“Are you very anxious that I should?”

“Very.”

“In that case, promise to give me your hand to kiss.”

“You can have both hands, Rénine, and gladly.”

The night was uneventful. Rénine had given orders for the two ladies to be waked at an early hour. When they came down, the motor was leaving the yard and pulling up in front of the inn. It was raining; and Adolphe, the chauffeur, had fixed up the long, low hood and packed the luggage inside.

Rénine called for his bill. They all three took a cup of coffee. But, just as they were leaving the room, one of the inspector’s men came rushing in:

“Have you seen him?” he asked. “Isn’t he here?”

The inspector himself arrived at a run, greatly excited:

“The prisoner has escaped! He ran back through the inn! He can’t be far away!”

A dozen rustics appeared like a whirlwind. They ransacked the lofts, the stables, the sheds. They scattered over the neighbourhood. But the search led to no discovery.

“Oh, hang it all!” said Rénine, who had taken his part in the