VI. THE MYSTERIOUS HAND
After the departure of Matrena, Rouletabille turned his attention to thegarden. Neither the marshal of the court nor the officers were there anylonger. The three men had disappeared. Rouletabille wished to knowat once where they had gone. He went rapidly to the gate, named theofficers and the marshal to Ermolai, and Ermolai made a sign that theyhad passed out. Even as he spoke he saw the marshal's carriage disappeararound a corner of the road. As to the two officers, they were nowhereon the roadway. He was surprised that the marshal should have gonewithout seeing Matrena or the general or himself, and, above all, he wasdisquieted by the disappearance of the orderlies. He gathered from thegestures of Ermolai that they had passed before the lodge only afew minutes after the marshal's departure. They had gone together.Rouletabille set himself to follow them, traced their steps in the softearth of the roadway and soon they crossed onto the grass. At this pointthe tracks through the massed ferns became very difficult to follow. Hehurried along, bending close to the ground over such traces as he couldsee, which continually led him astray, but which conducted him finallyto the thing that he sought. A noise of voices made him raise his headand then throw himself behind a tree. Not twenty steps from him Natachaand Boris were having an animated conversation. The young officer heldhimself erect directly in front of her, frowning and impatient. Underthe uniform cloak that he had wrapped about him without having botheredto use the sleeves, which were tossed up over his chest, Boris hadhis arms crossed. His entire attitude indicated hauteur, coldness anddisdain for what he was hearing. Natacha never appeared calmer or moremistress of herself. She talked to him rapidly and mostly in a lowvoice. Sometimes a word in Russian sounded, and then she resumed hercare to speak low. Finally she ceased, and Boris, after a short silence,in which he had seemed to reflect deeply, pronounced distinctly thesewords in French, pronouncing them syllable by syllable, as though togive them additional force:
"You ask a frightful thing of me."
"It is necessary to grant it to me," said the young girl with singularenergy. "You understand, Boris Alexandrovitch! It is necessary."
Her gaze, after she had glanced penetratingly all around her anddiscovered nothing suspicious, rested tenderly on the young officer,while she murmured, "My Boris!" The young man could not resist eitherthe sweetness of that voice, nor the captivating charm of that glance.He took the hand she extended toward him and kissed it passionately. Hiseyes, fixed on Natacha, proclaimed that he granted everything that shewished and admitted himself vanquished. Then she said, always with thatadorable gaze upon him, "This evening!" He replied, "Yes, yes. Thisevening! This evening!" upon which Natacha withdrew her hand and made asign to the officer to leave, which he promptly obeyed. Natacha remainedthere still a long time, plunged in thought. Rouletabille had alreadytaken the road back to the villa. Matrena Petrovna was watching for hisreturn, seated on the first step of the landing on the great staircasewhich ran up from the veranda. When she saw him she ran to him. He hadalready reached the dining-room.
"Anyone in the house?" he asked.
"No one. Natacha has not returned, and..."
"Your step-daughter is coming in now. Ask her where she has been, if shehas seen the orderlies, and if they said they would return this evening,in case she answers that she has seen them."
"Very well, little domovoi doukh. The orderlies left without my seeingwhen they went."
"Ah," interrupted Rouletabille, "before she arrives, give me all herhat-pins."
"What!"
"I say, all her hat-pins. Quickly!"
Matrena ran to Natacha's chamber and returned with three enormoushat-pins with beautifully-cut stones in them.
"These are all?"
"They are all I have found. I know she has two others. She has one onher head, or two, perhaps; I can't find them."
"Take these back where you found them," said the reporter, afterglancing at them.
Matrena returned immediately, not understanding what he was doing.
"And now, your hat-pins. Yes, your hat-pins."
"Oh, I have only two, and here they are," said she, drawing them fromthe toque she had been wearing and had thrown on the sofa when shere-entered the house.
Rouletabille gave hers the same inspection.
"Thanks. Here is your step-daughter."
Natacha entered, flushed and smiling.
"Ah, well," said she, quite breathless, "you may boast that I had tosearch for you. I made the entire round, clear past the Barque. Has thepromenade done papa good?"
"Yes, he is asleep," replied Matrena. "Have you met Boris and Michael?"
She appeared to hesitate a second, then replied:
"Yes, for an instant."
"Did they say whether they would return this evening?"
"No," she replied, slightly troubled. "Why all these questions?"
She flushed still more.
"Because I thought it strange," parried Matrena, "that they went awayas they did, without saying goodby, without a word, without inquiringif the general needed them. There is something stranger yet. Did you seeKaltsof with them, the grand-marshal of the court?"
"No."
"Kaltsof came for a moment, entered the garden and went away againwithout seeing us, without saying even a word to the general."
"Ah," said Natacha.
With apparent indifference, she raised her arms and drew out herhat-pins. Rouletabille watched the pin without a word. The young girlhardly seemed aware of their presence. Entirely absorbed in strangethoughts, she replaced the pin in her hat and went to hang it in theveranda, which served also as vestibule. Rouletabille never quitted hereyes. Matrena watched the reporter with a stupid glance. Natacha crossedthe drawing-room and entered her chamber by passing through her littlesitting-room, through which all entrance to her chamber had to be made.That little room, though, had three doors. One opened into Natacha'schamber, one into the drawing-room, and the third into the littlepassage in a corner of the house where was the stairway by which theservants passed from the kitchens to the ground-floor and theupper floor. This passage had also a door giving directly upon thedrawing-room. It was certainly a poor arrangement for serving thedining-room, which was on the other side of the drawing-room and behindthe veranda, such a chance laying-out of a house as one often sees inthe off-hand planning of many places in the country.
Alone again with Rouletabille, Matrena noticed that he had not lostsight of the corner of the veranda where Natacha had hung her hat.Beside this hat there was a toque that Ermolai had brought in. The oldservant had found it in some corner of the garden or the conservatorywhere he had been. A hat-pin stuck out of that toque also.
"Whose toque is that?" asked Rouletabille. "I haven't seen it on thehead of anyone here."
"It is Natacha's," replied Matrena.
She moved toward it, but the young man held her back, went into theveranda himself, and, without touching it, standing on tiptoe, heexamined the pin. He sank back on his heels and turned toward Matrena.She caught a glimpse of fleeting emotion on the face of her littlefriend.
"Explain to me," she said.
But he gave her a glance that frightened her, and said low:
"Go and give orders right away that dinner be served in the veranda.All through dinner it is absolutely necessary that the door of Natacha'ssitting-room, and that of the stairway passage, and that of the verandagiving on the drawing-room remain open all the time. Do you understandme? As soon as you have given your orders go to the general's chamberand do not quit the general's bedside, keep it in view. Come down todinner when it is announced, and do not bother yourself about anythingfurther."
So saying, he filled his pipe, lighted it with a sort of sigh of relief,and, after a final order to Matrena, "Go," he went into the garden,puffing great clouds. Anyone would have said he hadn't smoked in a week.He appeared not to be thinking but just idly enjoying himself. In fact,he played like a child with Milinki, Matrena's pet cat, which he pursuedbehind the shrubs,
up into the little kiosque which, raised on piles,lifted its steep thatched roof above the panorama of the isles thatRouletabille settled down to contemplate like an artist with ampleleisure.
The dinner, where Matrena, Natacha and Rouletabille were together again,was lively. The young man having declared that he was more and moreconvinced that the mystery of the bomb in the bouquet was simply a playof the police, Natacha reinforced his opinion, and following that theyfound themselves in agreement on about everything else. For himself, thereporter during that conversation hid a real horror which had seized himat the cynical and inappropriate tranquillity with which the young ladyreceived all suggestions that accused the police or that assumed thegeneral no longer ran any immediate danger. In short, he worked, or atleast believed he worked, to clear Natacha as he had cleared Matrena,so that there would develop the absolute necessity of assuming a thirdperson's intervention in the facts disclosed so clearly by Kouprianewhere Matrena or Natacha seemed alone to be possible agents. As helistened to Natacha Rouletabille commenced to doubt and quake just as hehad seen Matrena do. The more he looked into the nature of Natacha thedizzier he grew. What abysmal obscurities were there in her nature!
Nothing interesting happened during dinner. Several times, in spite ofRouletabille's obvious impatience with her for doing it, Matrena went upto the general. She returned saying, "He is quiet. He doesn't sleep. Hedoesn't wish anything. He has asked me to prepare his narcotic. It istoo bad. He has tried in vain, he cannot get along without it."
"You, too, mamma, ought to take something to make you sleep. They saymorphine is very good."
"As for me," said Rouletabille, whose head for some few minutes had beendropping now toward one shoulder and now toward another, "I have no needof any narcotic to make me sleep. If you will permit me, I will get tobed at once."
"Eh, my little domovoi doukh, I am going to carry you there in my arms."
Matrena extended her large round arms ready to take Rouletabille asthough he had been a baby.
"No, no. I will get up there all right alone," said Rouletabille, risingstupidly and appearing ashamed of his excessive sleepiness.
"Oh, well, let us both accompany him to his chamber," said Natacha, "andI will wish papa good-night. I'm eager for bed myself. We will all makea good night of it. Ermolai and Gniagnia will watch with the schwitzarin the lodge. Things are reasonably arranged now."
They all ascended the stairs. Rouletabille did not even go to see thegeneral, but threw himself on his bed. Natacha got onto the bed besideher father, embraced him a dozen times, and went downstairs again.Matrena followed behind her, closed doors and windows, went upstairsagain to close the door of the landing-place and found Rouletabilleseated on his bed, his arms crossed, not appearing to have any desirefor sleep at all. His face was so strangely pensive also that theanxiety of Matrena, who had been able to make nothing out of his actsand looks all day, came back upon her instantly in greater force thanever. She touched his arm in order to be sure that he knew she wasthere.
"My little friend," she said, "will you tell me now?"
"Yes, madame," he replied at once. "Sit in that chair and listen tome. There are things you must know at once, because we have reached adangerous hour."
"The hat-pins first. The hat-pins!"
Rouletabille rose lightly from the bed and, facing her, but watchingsomething besides her, said:
"It is necessary you should know that someone almost immediately isgoing to renew the attempt of the bouquet."
Matrena sprang to her feet as quickly as though she had been told therewas a bomb in the seat of her chair. She made herself sit down again,however, in obedience to Rouletabile's urgent look commanding absolutequiet.
"Renew the attempt of the bouquet!" she murmured in a stifled voice."But there is not a flower in the general's chamber."
"Be calm, madame. Understand me and answer me: You heard the tick-tackfrom the bouquet while you were in your own chamber?"
"Yes, with the doors open, naturally."
"You told me the persons who came to say good-night to the general. Atthat time there was no noise of tick-tack?"
"No, no."
"Do you think that if there had been any tick-tack then you would haveheard it, with all those persons talking in the room?"
"I hear everything. I hear everything."
"Did you go downstairs at the same time those people did?"
"No, no; I remained near the general for some time, until he was soundasleep."
"And you heard nothing?"
"Nothing."
"You closed the doors behind those persons?"
"Yes, the door to the great staircase. The door of the servants'stairway was condemned a long time ago; it has been locked by me,I alone have the key and on the inside of the door opening into thegeneral's chamber there is also a bolt which is always shot. All theother doors of the chambers have been condemned by me. In order to enterany of the four rooms on this floor it is necessary now to pass by thedoor of my chamber, which gives on the main staircase."
"Perfect. Then, no one has been able to enter the apartment. No onehad been in the apartment for at least two hours excepting you and thegeneral, when you heard the clockwork. From that the only conclusion isthat only the general and you could have started it going."
"What are you trying to say?" Matrena demanded, astounded.
"I wish to prove to you by this absurd conclusion, madame, that it isnecessary never--never, you understand? Never--to reason solely uponeven the most evident external evidence when those seemingly-conclusiveappearances are in conflict with certain moral truths that also areclear as the light of day. The light of day for me, madame, is that thegeneral does not desire to commit suicide and, above all, that he wouldnot choose the strange method of suicide by clockwork. The light ofday for me is that you adore your husband and that you are ready tosacrifice your life for his."
"Now!" exclaimed Matrena, whose tears, always ready in emotional moments,flowed freely. "But, Holy Mary, why do you speak to me without lookingat me? What is it? What is it?"
"Don't turn! Don't make a movement! You hear--not a move! And speak low,very low. And don't cry, for the love of God!"
"But you say at once... the bouquet! Come to the general's room!"
"Not a move. And continue listening to me without interrupting," saidhe, still inclining his ear, and still without looking at her. "Itis because these things were as the light of day to me that I say tomyself, 'It is impossible that it should be impossible for a thirdperson not to have placed the bomb in the bouquet. Someone is able toenter the general's chamber even when the general is watching and allthe doors are locked.'"
"Oh, no. No one could possibly enter. I swear it to you."
As she swore it a little too loudly, Rouletabille seized her arm so thatshe almost cried out, but she understood instantly that it was to keepher quiet.
"I tell you not to interrupt me, once for all."
"But, then, tell me what you are looking at like that."
"I am watching the corner where someone is going to enter the general'schamber when everything is locked, madame. Do not move!"
Matrena, her teeth chattering, recalled that when she enteredRouletabille's chamber she had found all the doors open thatcommunicated with the chain of rooms: the young man's chamber withhers, the dressing-room and the general's chamber. She tried, underRouletabille's look, to keep calm, but in spite of all the reporter'sexhortations she could not hold her tongue.
"But which way? Where will they enter?"
"By the door."
"Which door?"
"That of the chamber giving on the servants' stair-way."
"Why, how? The key! The bolt!"
"They have made a key."
"But the bolt is drawn this side."
"They will draw it back from the other side."
"What! That is impossible."
Rouletabille laid his two hands on Matrena's strong shoulders andrepeated, detaching e
ach syllable, "They will draw it back from theother side."
"It is impossible. I repeat it."
"Madame, your Nihilists haven't invented anything. It is a trick muchin vogue with sneak thieves in hotels. All it needs is a little hole thesize of a pin bored in the panel of the door above the bolt."
"God!" quavered Matrena. "I don't understand what you mean by yourlittle hole. Explain to me, little domovoi."
"Follow me carefully, then," continued Rouletabille, his eyes all thetime fixed elsewhere. "The person who wishes to enter sticks through thehole a brass wire that he has already given the necessary curve to andwhich is fitted on its end with a light point of steel curved inward.With such an instrument it is child's play, if the hole has been madewhere it ought to be, to touch the bolt on the inside from the outside,pick the knob on it, withdraw it, and open the door if the bolt is likethis one, a small door-bolt."
"Oh, oh, oh," moaned Matrena, who paled visibly. "And that hole?"
"It exists."
"You have discovered it?"
"Yes, the first hour I was here."
"Oh, domovoi! But how did you do that when you never entered thegeneral's chamber until to-night?"
"Doubtless, but I went up that servants' staircase much earlier thanthat. And I will tell you why. When I was brought into the villa thefirst time, and you watched me, bidden behind the door, do you know whatI was watching myself, while I appeared to be solely occupied diggingout the caviare? The fresh print of boot-nails which left the carpetnear the table, where someone had spilled beer (the beer was stillrunning down the cloth). Someone had stepped in the beer. The boot-printwas not clearly visible excepting there. But from there it went to thedoor of the servants' stairway and mounted the stairs. That boot was toofine to be mounting a stairway reserved to servants and that Kouprianetold me had been condemned, and it was that made me notice it in amoment; but just then you entered."
"You never told me anything about it. Of course if I had known there wasa boot-print..."
"I didn't tell you anything about it because I had my reasons for that,and, anyway, the trace dried while I was telling you about my journey."
"Ah, why not have told me later?"
"Because I didn't know you yet."
"Subtle devil! You will kill me. I can no longer... Let us go into thegeneral's chamber. We will wake him."
"Remain here. Remain here. I have not told you anything. That boot-printpreoccupied me, and later, when I could get away from the dining-room,I was not easy until I had climbed that stairway myself and gone to seethat door, where I discovered what I have just told you and what I amgoing to tell you now."
"What? What? In all you have said there has been nothing about thehat-pins."
"We have come to them now."
"And the bouquet attack, which is going to happen again? Why? Why?"
"This is it. When this evening you let me go to the general's chamber, Iexamined the bolt of the door without your suspecting it. My opinion wasconfirmed. It was that way that the bomb was brought, and it is by thatway that someone has prepared to return."
"But how? You are sure the little hole is the way someone came? But whatmakes you think that is how they mean to return? You know well enoughthat, not having succeeded in the general's chamber, they are at work inthe dining-room."
"Madame, it is probable, it is certain that they have given up the workin the dining-room since they have commenced this very day working againin the general's chamber. Yes, someone returned, returned that way, andI was so sure of that, of the forthcoming return, that I removed thepolice in order to be able to study everything more at my ease. Do youunderstand now my confidence and why I have been able to assume so heavya responsibility? It is because I knew I had only one thing to watch:one little hat-pin. It is not difficult, madame, to watch a singlelittle hat-pin."
"A mistake," said Matrena, in a low voice. "Miserable little domovoi whotold me nothing, me whom you let go to sleep on my mattress, in front ofthat door that might open any moment."
"No, madame. For I was behind it!"
"Ah, dear little holy angel! But what were you thinking of! That doorhas not been watched this afternoon. In our absence it could have beenopened. If someone has placed a bomb during our absence!"
"That is why I sent you at once in to the dining-room on that searchthat I thought would be fruitless, dear madame. And that is why Ihurried upstairs to the bedroom. I went to the stairway door instantly.I had prepared for proof positive if anyone had pushed it open even halfa millimeter. No, no one had touched the door in our absence.
"Ah, dear heroic little friend of Jesus! But listen to me. Listen to me,my angel. Ah, I don't know where I am or what I say. My brain is nomore than a flabby balloon punctured with pins, with little holes ofhat-pins. Tell me about the hat-pins. Right off! No, at first, what isit that makes you believe--good God!--that someone will return by thatdoor? How can you see that, all that, in a poor little hat-pin?"
"Madame, it is not a single hat-pin hole; there are two of them.
"Two hat-pin holes?"
"Yes, two. An old one and a new one. One quite new. Why this secondhole? Because the old one was judged a little too narrow and they wishedto enlarge it, and in enlarging it they broke off the point of a hat-pinin it. Madame, the point is there yet, filling up the little old holeand the piece of metal is very sharp and very bright."
"Now I understand the examination of the hat-pins. Then it is so easy asthat to get through a door with a hat-pin?"
"Nothing easier, especially if the panel is of pine. Sometimes onehappens to break the point of a pin in the first hole. Then of necessityone makes a second. In order to commence the second hole, the point ofthe pin being broken, they have used the point of a pen-knife, then havefinished the hole with the hat-pin. The second hole is still nearer thebolt than the first one. Don't move like that, madame."
"But they are going to come! They are going to come!"
"I believe so."
"But I can't understand how you can remain so quiet with such acertainty. Great heavens! what proof have you that they have not beenthere already?"
"Just an ordinary pin, madame, not a hat-pin this time. Don't confusethe pins. I will show you in a little while."
"He will drive me distracted with his pins, dear light of my eyes!Bounty of Heaven! God's envoy! Dear little happiness-bearer!"
In her transport she tried to take him in her trembling arms, but hewaved her back. She caught her breath and resumed:
"Did the examination of all the hat-pins tell you anything?"
"Yes. The fifth hat-pin of Mademoiselle Natacha's, the one in the toqueout in the veranda, has the tip newly broken off."
"O misery!" cried Matrena, crumpling in her chair.
Rouletabille raised her.
"What would you have? I have examined your own hat-pins. Do you thinkI would have suspected you if I had found one of them broken? Iwould simply have thought that someone had used your property for anabominable purpose, that is all."
"Oh, that is true, that is true. Pardon me. Mother of Christ, this boycrazes me! He consoles me and he horrifies me. He makes me think of suchdreadful things, and then he reassures me. He does what he wishes withme. What should I become without him?"
And this time she succeeded in taking his head in her two hands andkissing him passionately. Rouletabille pushed her back roughly.
"You keep me from seeing," he said.
She was in tears over his rebuff. She understood now. Rouletabilleduring all this conversation had not ceased to watch through the opendoors of Matrena's room and the dressing-room the farther fatal doorwhose brass bolt shone in the yellow light of the night-lamp.
At last he made her a sign and the reporter, followed by Matrena,advanced on tip-toe to the threshold of the general's chamber, keepingclose to the wall. Feodor Feodorovitch slept. They heard his heavybreath, but he appeared to be enjoying peaceful sleep. The horrors ofthe night before had fled. Matrena was pe
rhaps right in attributing thenightmares to the narcotic prepared for him each night, for the glassfrom which he drank it when he felt he could not sleep was still fulland obviously had not been touched. The bed of the general was so placedthat whoever occupied it, even if they were wide awake, could not seethe door giving on the servants' stairway. The little table where theglass and various phials were placed and which had borne the dangerousbouquet, was placed near the bed, a little back of it, and nearer thedoor. Nothing would have been easier than for someone who could openthe door to stretch an arm and place the infernal machine among the wildflowers, above all, as could easily be believed, if he had waitedfor that treachery until the heavy breathing of the general told themoutside that he was fast asleep, and if, looking through the key-hole,he had made sure Matrena was occupied in her own chamber. Rouletabille,at the threshold, glided to one side, out of the line of view from thehole, and got down on all fours. He crawled toward the door. With hishead to the floor he made sure that the little ordinary pin which he hadplaced on guard that evening, stuck in the floor against the door, wasstill erect, having thus additional proof that the door had not beenmoved. In any other case the pin would have lain flat on the floor. Hecrept back, rose to his feet, passed into the dressing-room and, in acorner, had a rapid conversation in a low voice with Matrena.
"You will go," said he, "and take your mattress into the corner of thedressing-room where you can still see the door but no one can see youby looking through the key-hole. Do that quite naturally, and then goto your rest. I will pass the night on the mattress, and I beg you tobelieve that I will be more comfortable there than on a bed of staircasewood where I spent the night last night, behind the door."
"Yes, but you will fall asleep. I don't wish that."
"What are you thinking, madame?"
"I don't wish it. I don't wish it. I don't wish to quit the door wherethe eye is. And since I'm not able to sleep, let me watch."
He did not insist, and they crouched together on the mattress.Rouletabille was squatted like a tailor at work; but Matrena remained onall-fours, her jaw out, her eyes fixed, like a bulldog ready to spring.The minutes passed by in profound silence, broken only by the irregularbreathing and puffing of the general. His face stood out pallid andtragic on the pillow; his mouth was open and, at times, the lipsmoved. There was fear at any moment of nightmare or his awakening.Unconsciously he threw an arm over toward the table where the glassof narcotic stood. Then he lay still again and snored lightly. Thenight-lamp on the mantelpiece caught queer yellow reflections from thecorners of the furniture, from the gilded frame of a picture on the walland from the phials and glasses on the table. But in all the chamberMatrena Petrovna saw nothing, thought of nothing but the brass boltwhich shone there on the door. Tired of being on her knees, she shifted,her chin in her hands, her gaze steadily fixed. As time passed andnothing happened she heaved a sigh. She could not have said whether shehoped for or dreaded the coming of that something new which Rouletabillehad indicated. Rouletabille felt her shiver with anguish and impatience.
As for him, he had not hoped that anything would come to pass untiltoward dawn, the moment, as everyone knows, when deep sleep is most aptto vanquish all watchfulness and all insomnia. And as he waited for thatmoment he had not budged any more than a Chinese ape or the dear littleporcelain domovoi doukh in the garden. Of course it might be that it wasnot to happen this night.
Suddenly Matrena's hand fell on Rouletabille's. His imprisoned hers sofirmly that she understood she was forbidden to make the least movement.And both, with necks extended, ears erect, watched like beasts, likebeasts on the scent.
Yes, yes, there had been a slight noise in the lock. A key turned,softly, softly, in the lock, and then--silence; and then another littlenoise, a grinding sound, a slight grating of wire, above, then on thebolt; upon the bolt which shone in the subdued glow of the night-lamp.The bolt softly, very softly, slipped slowly.
Then the door was pushed slowly, so slowly. It opened.
Through the opening the shadow of an arm stretched, an arm which heldin its fingers something which shone. Rouletabille felt Matrena ready tobound. He encircled her, he pressed her in his arms, he restrained herin silence, and he had a horrible fear of hearing her suddenly shout,while the arm stretched out, almost touched the pillow on the bed wherethe general continued to sleep a sleep of peace such as he had not knownfor a long time.