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

hunt. “How can it have happened?”

“How do I know?” spluttered the inspector in despair. “I left my three men watching in the next room. I found them this morning fast asleep, stupefied by some narcotic which had been mixed with their wine! And the Dalbrèque bird had flown!”

“Which way?”

“Through the window. There were evidently accomplices, with ropes and a ladder. And, as Dalbrèque had a broken leg, they carried him off on the stretcher itself.”

“They left no traces?”

“No traces of footsteps, true. The rain has messed everything up. But they went through the yard, because the stretcher’s there.”

“You’ll find him, Mr. Inspector, there’s no doubt of that. In any case, you may be sure that you won’t have any trouble over the affair. I shall be in Paris this evening and shall go straight to the prefecture, where I have influential friends.”

Rénine went back to the two women in the coffee-room and Hortense at once said:

“It was you who carried him off, wasn’t it? Please put Rose Andrée’s mind at rest. She is so terrified!”

He gave Rose Andrée his arm and led her to the car. She was staggering and very pale; and she said, in a faint voice:

“Are we going? And he: is he safe? Won’t they catch him again?”

Looking deep into her eyes, he said:

“Swear to me, Rose Andrée, that in two months, when he is well and when I have proved his innocence, swear that you will go away with him to America.”

“I swear.”

“And that, once there, you will marry him.”

“I swear.”

He spoke a few words in her ear.

“Ah!” she said. “May Heaven bless you for it!”

Hortense took her seat in front, with Rénine, who sat at the wheel. The inspector, hat in hand, fussed around the car until it moved off.

They drove through the forest, crossed the Seine at La Mailleraie and struck into the Havre-Rouen road.

“Take off your glove and give me your hand to kiss,” Rénine ordered. “You promised that you would.”

“Oh!” said Hortense. “But it was to be when Dalbrèque was saved.”

“He is saved.”

“Not yet. The police are after him. They may catch him again. He will not be really saved until he is with Rose Andrée.”

“He is with Rose Andrée,” he declared.

“What do you mean?”

“Turn round.”

She did so.

In the shadow of the hood, right at the back, behind the chauffeur, Rose Andrée was kneeling beside a man lying on the seat.

“Oh,” stammered Hortense, “it’s incredible! Then it was you who hid him last night? And he was there, in front of the inn, when the inspector was seeing us off?”

“Lord, yes! He was there, under the cushions and rugs!”

“It’s incredible!” she repeated, utterly bewildered. “It’s incredible! How were you able to manage it all?”

“I wanted to kiss your hand,” he said.

She removed her glove, as he bade her, and raised her hand to his lips.

The car was speeding between the peaceful Seine and the white cliffs that border it. They sat silent for a long while. Then he said:

“I had a talk with Dalbrèque last night. He’s a fine fellow and is ready to do anything for Rose Andrée. He’s right. A man must do anything for the woman he loves. He must devote himself to her, offer her all that is beautiful in this world: joy and happiness⁠ ⁠… and, if she should be bored, stirring adventures to distract her, to excite her and to make her smile⁠ ⁠… or even weep.”

Hortense shivered; and her eyes were not quite free from tears. For the first time he was alluding to the sentimental adventure that bound them by a tie which as yet was frail, but which became stronger and more enduring with each of the ventures on which they entered together, pursuing them feverishly and anxiously to their close. Already she felt powerless and uneasy with this extraordinary man, who subjected events to his will and seemed to play with the destinies of those whom he fought or protected. He filled her with dread and at the same time he attracted her. She thought of him sometimes as her master, sometimes as an enemy against whom she must defend herself, but oftenest as a perturbing friend, full of charm and fascination.⁠ ⁠…

V Thérèse and Germaine

The weather was so mild that autumn that, on the 12th of October, in the morning, several families still lingering in their villas at Étretat had gone down to the beach. The sea, lying between the cliffs and the clouds on the horizon, might have suggested a mountain-lake slumbering in the hollow of the enclosing rocks, were it not for that crispness in the air and those pale, soft and indefinite colours in the sky which give a special charm to certain days in Normandy.

“It’s delicious,” murmured Hortense. But the next moment she added: “All the same, we did not come here to enjoy the spectacle of nature or to wonder whether that huge stone Needle on our left was really at one time the home of Arsène Lupin.”

“We came here,” said Prince Rénine, “because of the conversation which I overheard, a fortnight ago, in a dining-car, between a man and a woman.”

“A conversation of which I was unable to catch a single word.”

“If those two people could have guessed for an instant that it was possible to hear a single word of what they were saying, they would not have spoken, for their conversation was one of extraordinary gravity and importance. But I have very sharp ears; and though I could not follow every sentence, I insist that we may be certain of two things. First, that man and woman, who are brother and sister, have an appointment at a quarter to twelve this morning, the 12th of October, at the spot known as the Trois Mathildes, with a third person, who is married and who wishes at all costs to recover his or her liberty. Secondly, this appointment, at which they will come to a final agreement, is to be followed this evening