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

never visited and of which he took the precaution to demolish the wooden stairs. Nothing therefore remained for him to do but to explain the disappearance of his wife and his friend. This presented no difficulty. He accused them of having eloped together.”

Hortense gave a start. Suddenly, as though the last sentence were a complete and to her an absolutely unexpected revelation, she understood what Rénine was trying to convey:

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean that M. d’Aigleroche accused his wife and his friend of eloping together.”

“No, no!” she cried. “I can’t allow that!⁠ ⁠… You are speaking of a cousin of my uncle’s? Why mix up the two stories?”

“Why mix up this story with another which took place at that time?” said the prince. “But I am not mixing them up, my dear madame; there is only one story and I am telling it as it happened.”

Hortense turned to her uncle. He sat silent, with his arms folded; and his head remained in the shadow cast by the lampshade. Why had he not protested?

Rénine repeated in a firm tone:

“There is only one story. On the evening of that very day, the 5th of September at eight o’clock, M. d’Aigleroche, doubtless alleging as his reason that he was going in pursuit of the runaway couple, left his house after boarding up the entrance. He went away, leaving all the rooms as they were and removing only the firearms from their glass case. At the last minute, he had a presentiment, which has been justified today, that the discovery of the telescope which had played so great a part in the preparation of his crime might serve as a clue to an enquiry; and he threw it into the clock-case, where, as luck would have it, it interrupted the swing of the pendulum. This unreflecting action, one of those which every criminal inevitably commits, was to betray him twenty years later. Just now, the blows which I struck to force the door of the drawing-room released the pendulum. The clock was set going, struck eight o’clock⁠ ⁠… and I possessed the clue of thread which was to lead me through the labyrinth.”

“Proofs!” stammered Hortense. “Proofs!”

“Proofs?” replied Rénine, in a loud voice. “Why, there are any number of proofs; and you know them as well as I do. Who could have killed at that distance of eight hundred yards, except an expert shot, an ardent sportsman? You agree, M. d’Aigleroche, do you not?⁠ ⁠… Proofs? Why was nothing removed from the house, nothing except the guns, those guns which an ardent sportsman cannot afford to leave behind⁠—you agree, M. d’Aigleroche⁠—those guns which we find here, hanging in trophies on the walls!⁠ ⁠… Proofs? What about that date, the 5th of September, which was the date of the crime and which has left such a horrible memory in the criminal’s mind that every year at this time⁠—at this time alone⁠—he surrounds himself with distractions and that every year, on this same 5th of September, he forgets his habits of temperance? Well, today, is the 5th of September.⁠ ⁠… Proofs? Why, if there weren’t any others, would that not be enough for you?”

And Rénine, flinging out his arm, pointed to the Comte d’Aigleroche, who, terrified by this evocation of the past, had sunk huddled into a chair and was hiding his head in his hands.

Hortense did not attempt to argue with him. She had never liked her uncle, or rather her husband’s uncle. She now accepted the accusation laid against him.

Sixty seconds passed. Then M. d’Aigleroche walked up to them and said:

“Whether the story be true or not, you can’t call a husband a criminal for avenging his honour and killing his faithless wife.”

“No,” replied Rénine, “but I have told only the first version of the story. There is another which is infinitely more serious⁠ ⁠… and more probable, one to which a more thorough investigation would be sure to lead.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean this. It may not be a matter of a husband taking the law into his own hands, as I charitably supposed. It may be a matter of a ruined man who covets his friend’s money and his friend’s wife and who, with this object in view, to secure his freedom, to get rid of his friend and of his own wife, draws them into a trap, suggests to them that they should visit that lonely tower and kills them by shooting them from a distance safely under cover.”

“No, no,” the count protested. “No, all that is untrue.”

“I don’t say it isn’t. I am basing my accusation on proofs, but also on intuitions and arguments which up to now have been extremely accurate. All the same, I admit that the second version may be incorrect. But, if so, why feel any remorse? One does not feel remorse for punishing guilty people.”

“One does for taking life. It is a crushing burden to bear.”

“Was it to give himself greater strength to bear this burden that M. d’Aigleroche afterwards married his victim’s widow? For that, sir, is the crux of the question. What was the motive of that marriage? Was M. d’Aigleroche penniless? Was the woman he was taking as his second wife rich? Or were they both in love with each other and did M. d’Aigleroche plan with her to kill his first wife and the husband of his second wife? These are problems to which I do not know the answer. They have no interest for the moment; but the police, with all the means at their disposal, would have no great difficulty in elucidating them.”

M. d’Aigleroche staggered and had to steady himself against the back of a chair. Livid in the face, he spluttered:

“Are you going to inform the police?”

“No, no,” said Rénine. “To begin with, there is the statute of limitations. Then there are twenty years of remorse and dread, a memory which will pursue the criminal to his dying hour, accompanied no doubt by domestic discord, hatred, a daily hell⁠ ⁠… and, in the