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

in the loft. She had hanged herself.

Hortense refused to stay another night. Besides, it was better that the cottage should be empty when the old nurse announced the madwoman’s suicide. Rénine gave Félicienne minute directions as to what she should do and say; and then, assisted by the chauffeur and M. de Lourtier, carried Hortense to the car and brought her home.

She was soon convalescent. Two days later, Rénine carefully questioned her and asked her how she had come to know the madwoman.

“It was very simple,” she said. “My husband, who is not quite sane, as I have told you, is being looked after at Ville d’Avray; and I sometimes go to see him, without telling anybody, I admit. That was how I came to speak to that poor madwoman and how, the other day, she made signs that she wanted me to visit her. We were alone. I went into the cottage. She threw herself upon me and overpowered me before I had time to cry for help. I thought it was a jest; and so it was, wasn’t it: a madwoman’s jest? She was quite gentle with me.⁠ ⁠… All the same, she let me starve. But I was so sure of you!”

“And weren’t you frightened?”

“Of starving? No. Besides, she gave me some food, now and then, when the fancy took her.⁠ ⁠… And then I was sure of you!”

“Yes, but there was something else: that other peril.⁠ ⁠…”

“What other peril?” she asked, ingenuously.

Rénine gave a start. He suddenly understood⁠—it seemed strange at first, though it was quite natural⁠—that Hortense had not for a moment suspected and did not yet suspect the terrible danger which she had run. Her mind had not connected with her own adventure the murders committed by the lady with the hatchet.

He thought that it would always be time enough to tell her the truth. For that matter, a few days later her husband, who had been locked up for years, died in the asylum at Ville d’Avray, and Hortense, who had been recommended by her doctor a short period of rest and solitude, went to stay with a relation living near the village of Bassicourt, in the centre of France.

VII Footprints in the Snow

To Prince Serge Rénine,
Boulevard Haussmann,
Paris

La Roncière
Near Bassicourt,
14 November.

“My dear friend⁠—

“You must be thinking me very ungrateful. I have been here three weeks; and you have had not one letter from me! Not a word of thanks! And yet I ended by realizing from what terrible death you saved me and understanding the secret of that terrible business! But indeed, indeed I couldn’t help it! I was in such a state of prostration after it all! I needed rest and solitude so badly! Was I to stay in Paris? Was I to continue my expeditions with you? No, no, no! I had had enough adventures! Other people’s are very interesting, I admit. But when one is one’s self the victim and barely escapes with one’s life?⁠ ⁠… Oh, my dear friend, how horrible it was! Shall I ever forget it?⁠ ⁠…

“Here, at la Roncière, I enjoy the greatest peace. My old spinster cousin Ermelin pets and coddles me like an invalid. I am getting back my colour and am very well, physically⁠ ⁠… so much so, in fact, that I no longer ever think of interesting myself in other people’s business. Never again! For instance (I am only telling you this because you are incorrigible, as inquisitive as any old charwoman, and always ready to busy yourself with things that don’t concern you), yesterday I was present at a rather curious meeting. Antoinette had taken me to the inn at Bassicourt, where we were having tea in the public room, among the peasants (it was market-day), when the arrival of three people, two men and a woman, caused a sudden pause in the conversation.

“One of the men was a fat farmer in a long blouse, with a jovial, red face, framed in white whiskers. The other was younger, was dressed in corduroy and had lean, yellow, cross-grained features. Each of them carried a gun slung over his shoulder. Between them was a short, slender young woman, in a brown cloak and a fur cap, whose rather thin and extremely pale face was surprisingly delicate and distinguished-looking.

“ ‘Father, son and daughter-in-law,’ whispered my cousin.

“ ‘What! Can that charming creature be the wife of that clodhopper?’

“ ‘And the daughter-in-law of Baron de Gorne.’

“ ‘Is the old fellow over there a baron?’

“ ‘Yes, descended from a very ancient, noble family which used to own the château in the old days. He has always lived like a peasant: a great hunter, a great drinker, a great litigant, always at law with somebody, now very nearly ruined. His son Mathias was more ambitious and less attached to the soil and studied for the bar. Then he went to America. Next, the lack of money brought him back to the village, whereupon he fell in love with a young girl in the nearest town. The poor girl consented, no one knows why, to marry him; and for five years past she has been leading the life of a hermit, or rather of a prisoner, in a little manor-house close by, the Manoir-au-Puits, the Well Manor.’

“ ‘With the father and the son?’ I asked.

“ ‘No, the father lives at the far end of the village, on a lonely farm.’

“ ‘And is Master Mathias jealous?’

“ ‘A perfect tiger!’

“ ‘Without reason?’

“ ‘Without reason, for Natalie de Gorne is the straightest woman in the world and it is not her fault if a handsome young man has been hanging around the manor-house for the past few months. However, the de Gornes can’t get over it.’

“ ‘What, the father neither?’

“ ‘The handsome young man is the last descendant of the people who bought the château long ago. This explains old de Gorne’s hatred. Jérôme Vignal⁠—I know him and am very fond of him⁠—is a good-looking fellow and very well off; and he has sworn to run off with Natalie de Gorne. It’s