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

and giving him a pledge which, with his powers of suggestion, he would know how to turn to account.

Two days before the 5th of December, she was still in the same frame of mind. So she was on the morning of the 4th; but suddenly, without even having to contend against preliminary subterfuges, she ran out into the garden, cut three lengths of rush, plaited them as she used to do in her childhood and at twelve o’clock had herself driven to the station. She was uplifted by an eager curiosity. She was unable to resist all the amusing and novel sensations which the adventure, proposed by Rénine, promised her. It was really too tempting. The jet necklace, the toque with the autumn leaves, the old woman with the silver rosary: how could she resist their mysterious appeal and how could she refuse this opportunity of showing Rénine what she was capable of doing?

“And then, after all,” she said to herself, laughing, “he’s summoning me to Paris. Now eight o’clock is dangerous to me at a spot three hundred miles from Paris, in that old deserted Château de Halingre, but nowhere else. The only clock that can strike the threatening hour is down there, under lock and key, a prisoner!”

She reached Paris that evening. On the morning of the 5th she went out and bought a jet necklace, which she reduced to seventy-five beads, put on a blue gown and a toque with red leaves and, at four o’clock precisely, entered the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont.

Her heart was throbbing violently. This time she was alone; and how acutely she now felt the strength of that support which, from unreflecting fear rather than any reasonable motive, she had thrust aside! She looked around her, almost hoping to see him. But there was no one there⁠ ⁠… no one except an old lady in black, standing beside the holy water basin.

Hortense went up to her. The old lady, who held a silver rosary in her hands, offered her holy water and then began to count the beads of the necklace which Hortense gave her.

She whispered:

“Seventy-five. That’s right. Come.”

Without another word, she toddled along under the light of the street-lamps, crossed the Pont des Tournelles to the Ile Saint-Louis and went down an empty street leading to a crossroads, where she stopped in front of an old house with wrought-iron balconies:

“Go in,” she said.

And the old lady went away.

Hortense now saw a prosperous-looking shop which occupied almost the whole of the ground-floor and whose windows, blazing with electric light, displayed a huddled array of old furniture and antiquities. She stood there for a few seconds, gazing at it absently. A signboard bore the words “The Mercury,” together with the name of the owner of the shop, “Pancaldi.” Higher up, on a projecting cornice which ran on a level with the first floor, a small niche sheltered a terra-cotta Mercury poised on one foot, with wings to his sandals and the caduceus in his hand, who, as Hortense noted, was leaning a little too far forward in the ardour of his flight and ought logically to have lost his balance and taken a header into the street.

“Now!” she said, under her breath.

She turned the handle of the door and walked in.

Despite the ringing of the bells actuated by the opening door, no one came to meet her. The shop seemed to be empty. However, at the extreme end there was a room at the back of the shop and after that another, both crammed with furniture and knickknacks, many of which looked very valuable. Hortense followed a narrow gangway which twisted and turned between two walls built up of cupboards, cabinets and console-tables, went up two steps and found herself in the last room of all.

A man was sitting at a writing-desk and looking through some account-books. Without turning his head, he said:

“I am at your service, madam.⁠ ⁠… Please look round you.⁠ ⁠…”

This room contained nothing but articles of a special character which gave it the appearance of some alchemist’s laboratory in the middle ages: stuffed owls, skeletons, skulls, copper alembics, astrolabes and all around, hanging on the walls, amulets of every description, mainly hands of ivory or coral with two fingers pointing to ward off ill-luck.

“Are you wanting anything in particular, madam?” asked M. Pancaldi, closing his desk and rising from his chair.

“It’s the man,” thought Hortense.

He had in fact an uncommonly pasty complexion. A little forked beard, flecked with grey, lengthened his face, which was surmounted by a bald, pallid forehead, beneath which gleamed a pair of small, prominent, restless, shifty eyes.

Hortense, who had not removed her veil or cloak, replied:

“I want a clasp.”

“They’re in this showcase,” he said, leading the way to the connecting room.

Hortense glanced over the glass case and said:

“No, no,⁠ ⁠… I don’t see what I’m looking for. I don’t want just any clasp, but a clasp which I lost out of a jewel-case some years ago and which I have to look for here.”

She was astounded to see the commotion displayed on his features. His eyes became haggard.

“Here?⁠ ⁠… I don’t think you are in the least likely.⁠ ⁠… What sort of clasp is it?⁠ ⁠…”

“A cornelian, mounted in gold filigree⁠ ⁠… of the 1830 period.”

“I don’t understand,” he stammered. “Why do you come to me?”

She now removed her veil and laid aside her cloak.

He stepped back, as though terrified by the sight of her, and whispered:

“The blue gown!⁠ ⁠… The toque!⁠ ⁠… And⁠—can I believe my eyes?⁠—the jet necklace!⁠ ⁠…”

It was perhaps the whiplash formed of three rushes that excited him most violently. He pointed his finger at it, began to stagger where he stood and ended by beating the air with his arms, like a drowning man, and fainting away in a chair.

Hortense did not move.

“Whatever farce he may play,” Rénine had written, “have the courage to remain impassive.”

Perhaps he was not playing a farce. Nevertheless she forced herself to be calm and indifferent.

This lasted for a minute or two, after which M. Pancaldi recovered from