‘Nothing has changed!’ he whispered.
An old dog lay stretched out upon the bookseller’s door-step, resting its lazy head on frozen paws.
‘It’s Cham!’ cried Rouletabille. ‘I recognise him! It’s Cham, dear old Cham!’ And he called: ‘Cham! Cham! Here, boy!’
The dog got up and moved towards the voice calling him. He took a few halting steps, rubbed against our legs and returned to his doorstep, indifferent.
‘Oh !’ said Rouletabille. ‘It’s Cham, right enough, but he doesn’t recognise me any more.’
We went down a narrow, sloping alley, paved with sharp cobbles. He held me by the hand, and I could again feel how feverish he was. Presently, we stopped at a small Jesuit building with a stone porch.
Rouletabille pushed open a small, low door.
‘The school chapel,’ he whispered.
No one was there.
We passed through rapidly, and Rouletabille drew aside a small screen and looked out.
‘Good!’ he went on. ‘All’s well. If we go this way we shall get into the school without the porter seeing us. He would certainly have recognised me.’
‘What if he did?’
But just as I spoke, a man passed before the screen, bare-headed, with a bunch of keys in his hand, and Rouletabille drew back into the shadows.
‘It’s M. Simon. How he’s aged! He’s lost all his hair. He’s going to sweep out the small boys’ study. Everybody is at lessons now. We shall be quite free. There is nobody left but Madame Simon in the lodge, unless she is dead. Anyway, she can’t see us here. But, wait a moment, here comes M. Simon back again.’
Why was Rouletabille so anxious not to be seen? Why? I obviously knew nothing about this boy whom I thought I knew so well. Every hour I spent with him brought me some fresh surprise.
While we were waiting for M. Simon to go, Rouletabille and I succeeded, unperceived, in moving away from the screen. Hidden in the corner of a little garden behind some shrubs, we were able, by leaning over the brick wall, to look down upon the broad yard and the buildings of the school below. Rouletabille clung to my arm as if he were afraid of falling.
‘Oh, God!’ he exclaimed in a hoarse voice. ‘Everything is different! They have torn down the old study hall where I found the knife, and the playground where I hid the money has been moved. But the chapel walls are still there. Look, Sainclair, lean over. The door that leads to the underground part of the chapel belongs to the small boys’ classroom. How many times I went through that door when I was a little fellow! But never, never did I go through that door so joyfully as when M. Simon came to fetch me to the parlour where the Lady in Black was waiting for me. I only hope they’ve left the parlour untouched!’ He glanced back, and then thrust his head forward. ‘No, no! Look! There’s the parlour, just beside the arch, the first door on the right. That is where she used to come to me … There….We shall go there presently, when M. Simon is gone.’
His teeth were chattering.
‘I’m crazy,’ he said. ‘I think I’m going mad. What can you expect? I can’t help it, can I? The very idea that I’m going to see that parlour again, the parlour where she used to wait for me … Then I lived solely in the hope of seeing her, and when she was gone, though I promised her I would be sensible, such an overwhelming sense of depression would sweep over me that they feared for my health. The only way they could bring me back to my senses was to declare that if I fell ill I wouldn’t see her again. Until I did see her again, the memory of her presence and of her perfume was continually with me. As I had never seen her dear face distinctly, I used to try to absorb her perfume while she held me in her arms, and I lived more with the memory of that than with her image.
During the days following her visit, I used to escape when playtime came, and go into the parlour, and when it was empty, like today, I’d take long, deep breaths of the air she had breathed and I’d go away again, my heart steeped in her perfume. It was the most delicate, the subtlest and certainly the sweetest, most natural perfume in the world, and I was convinced that I should never know it again until the day I told you about, Sainclair, do you remember? The day of the reception at the Elysée Palace?’
‘The day, my friend, that you met Mathilde Stangerson.’
‘Yes,’ he answered, in a trembling voice.
Oh, if I had only known then that Professor Stangerson’s daughter, at the time of her first marriage in America, had had a child, a son who, had he been living, would be of Rouletabille’s age. Perhaps after that journey to Eu, I would, at last, have understood his feelings, his sorrow, his strange manner when he whispered the name of Mathilde Stangerson in the school, which the Lady in Black used to visit so often.
There was a moment’s silence, which I dared not break.
‘Did you ever find out why the Lady in Black never came back?’
‘Oh,’ said Rouletabille, ‘I’m sure the Lady in Black did come back! But I was not here!’
‘Who took you away?’
‘Nobody. I ran away.’
‘Why? Did you run away to look for her?’
‘No, no! I fled from her! I tell you I fled, Sainclair. But she came back. I’m sure she came back.’
‘She must have been in despair when she could not find you.’
Rouletabille raised his arms heavenwards and shook his head.
‘How do I know? Can anyone know? Oh, I am wretched! Hush, my friend, hush! M. Simon – there – he’s going at last. Let’s hurry to the parlour!’
We were there in three strides. It was a large, plain room, with white curtains at the windows. The furniture consisted of six cane-bottomed chairs, a mirror over the fireplace and a clock. It was somewhat dark.
As we went in, Rouletabille respectfully, piously removed his hat, as anyone might do on entering a sacred building. His face was flushed and he advanced hesitantly, nervously fingering his tweed cap. He turned towards me and spoke in an undertone, more softly even than he had done in the chapel.
‘Oh, Sainclair, this is the parlour! Here, hold my hand, it’s burning. I’m blushing, am I not? I always did when I came in here knowing that I should find her. I would feel as if I had been running, I’d be out of breath. I couldn’t wait, you see? Oh, my heart is thumping as it did when I was a little child! There, do you see? I used to get as far as that, by the door, and then I would stop, ashamed. But I could see her black shape in the corner. She used to hold her arms out to me in silence, and I would throw myself into them, and we would hug each other and cry. Oh, it felt good! She was my mother, Sainclair. She didn’t say so. On the contrary, she told me that my mother was dead and that she was her friend. But since she asked me to call her “mother” and cried when I kissed her, I knew perfectly well that she was my mother. She always sat there, in that dark corner, and always arrived late in the afternoon, before they had turned on the lights in the parlour. She used to put a parcel, tied up with pink string, on the window-sill. It was a bun. I love buns, Sainclair!’
When he had finished speaking, Rouletabille could no longer control his feelings. He leaned against the mantelpiece and wept bitterly. When he was a little calmer, he looked up at me, smiling sadly. Then he sat down, utterly exhausted. I was careful not to speak to him. I knew he was not talking to me, but to himself.
I saw him take the letter – the letter I had given him – from his pocket, and open it with trembling hands. He read it slowly. Suddenly his hand fell, and he uttered a cry. His previously flushed cheeks became terribly pale. I stepped towards him, but he signed to me to remain where I was. Then he shut his eyes. He seemed to be sleeping, and I moved away on tiptoe as one would in a sickroom. I waited, resting my elbows on the sill of a little window that looked out upon a small courtyard in which stood a great chestnut tree.
How long did I stare at that tree? I have no idea. I was thinking of my friend’s extraordinary position, of the woman who was perhaps his mother, and perhaps not. Rouletabille was so young then; he needed a mother s
o much that perhaps he created one for himself in his imagination. Rouletabille! What other name did we know him by? Joseph Josephin. It was probably under that name that he had studied here. As the editor of L’Epoque had said, Joseph Josephin ‘wasn’t a name’. And, now, what had he come here for? To find the trace of a perfume, to revive a memory, an illusion?
I heard him move and I turned round. He was standing now and seemed calmer. His expression was that of a person who has just won a great victory over himself.
‘Sainclair, we must go now. Let us go!’ And he hurried away, without a backward glance. I followed.
In the deserted street, which we reached unobserved, I stopped him, and asked anxiously:
‘Well, my friend, did you find the perfume of the Lady in Black?’
He saw that the question was a heartfelt one. I did so earnestly wish that this visit to the scene of his childhood might restore a little peace to his soul.
‘Yes,’ he answered solemnly. ‘Yes, Sainclair, I found it.’ And he showed me the letter that Professor Stangerson’s daughter had written to him.
I stared at him stupidly, not understanding, for I did not know. He took my hands in his, held them very tight, and said:
‘I’m going to tell you a great secret, Sainclair, the secret of my life and perhaps, one day, of my death. Whatever happens, this secret shall die with me. Mathilde Stangerson had a child, a son. That son is dead. He is dead to everyone except to you and me!’
I stepped back, utterly amazed. Rouletabille, Mathilde Stangerson’s son! Then I had another shock. If that was so, then … Rouletabille was Larsan’s son!
Oh, how well I understood Rouletabille’s hesitancy now! I understood why Rouletabille, suspecting the truth, had said: ‘Why isn’t he dead? If he is alive, then I would rather be dead!’
Rouletabille must have read the very thought in my eyes, for he nodded to me as if to say:
‘That’s it, Sainclair, now you have it!’ Then he said loudly: ‘Say nothing!’
When we reached Paris, we parted, to meet again at the railway station. There Rouletabille handed me a new message, which had come from Valance, and was signed by Professor Stangerson. It said:
‘Darzac tells me that you have a few days’ holiday. We should be very glad if you could spend it with us. We shall expect you at Rochers Rouges, Mr Arthur Rance’s home. He will be delighted to introduce you to his wife. My daughter will also be very glad to see you. She joins me in sending you kindest regards.’
At last, just as we were getting into the train, the porter from Rouletabille’s hotel rushed on to the platform and handed us a third message. This one came from Menton, and was signed by Mathilde. It consisted of one word only: ‘Help!’
CHAPTER IV
En route
Now I know everything. Rouletabille has told me the story of his extraordinary childhood, and I know why the one thing he dreads most of all is that M. Darzac should penetrate the mystery that separates them. I no longer dare say anything, nor advise my friend. Poor young man! When he had finished reading the message, he pressed it to his lips, and, squeezing my hand, he exclaimed:
‘If I arrive too late, I shall avenge her.’ Now and then, a swift, unguarded movement betrays the agitation of his soul, but, in the main, he is calm. Oh, how terribly calm he is! What resolution did he make in the parlour, while he rested, with closed eyes, in that corner where the Lady in Black used to sit?
As we speed towards Lyon, and Rouletabille lies stretched out upon the seat of the railway carriage, dreaming, I shall tell you how and why the child ran away from school at Eu, and what came of it.
Rouletabille had fled like a thief. I cannot put it any other way, for he was accused of theft. This is the story :
At nine years of age, he was already gifted with extraordinary intelligence, and revelled in working out the most difficult and complicated of problems. Possessed of an astonishing sense of logic, all the more surprising given its very simplicity, he puzzled his teacher with the philosophy behind his working methods. He had never been able to fathom the multiplication table and counted on his fingers. He generally got his schoolfellows to do his sums, much as one leaves the heavy household work to the servants. But before he made them do the work, he told them how it should be done.
Never having studied algebra, he had invented a system of cuneiform signs for his own use, with which he set down the main points of his problems, and so worked out a number of curious mathematical formulae, which he alone could understand. His teacher spoke of him with pride as a sort of Pascal who had, unaided, worked out Euclid’s first propositions.
He applied his marvellous faculty for reasoning to the commonplace affairs of everyday life, whether dealing with matters of material or moral import, it made no difference. If a deed had been committed – a schoolboy trick, a scandal, no matter what – by applying his system of reasoning he almost invariably discovered the culprit, as a result of deductions made from facts given to him, as well as from his own personal observations.
So much for the moral side of the question. As for the material aspect, nothing was easier than for him to find an object which had been lost, hidden or stolen. His marvellous faculty served him best in that area, as if Nature, desirous of righting the balance, having created a father who was the evil genius of thieves, had wished to create a son who would be the good angel of the thief’s victims.
This extraordinary aptitude, which won him great esteem among his schoolfellows, was one day to prove fatal to him. On one occasion, he managed, with such astonishing success, to find a small sum of money that had been stolen from the headmaster that nobody would believe that the discovery was due solely to his intelligence and perspicacity. No one accepted his explanation and, in the end, owing to an unfortunate coincidence of time and place, he was suspected of being the thief. They tried to make him confess his guilt, but he denied it so indignantly and so vehemently that he was punished for showing disrespect for his superiors. There was an inquiry, and Joseph Josephin was basely turned upon by his playmates. Several of them declared that for some time past they had missed books and stationery, and, seeing the weight of evidence building against him, they formally accused the boy of taking them.
The fact that he was known to have no parents, and that nobody knew whence he came, served still further to place him in an unpleasant light. When the boys spoke to him they called him ‘thief. He fought them and was beaten, for he was not strong. He was desperate; he wanted to die. The headmaster (who was, in fact, a good man, but was convinced that he was dealing with a corrupt nature upon which it was necessary to make a profound impression by making the child realise the full horror of his deed) actually told the hapless boy that if he did not reform, he would not be kept much longer at the school and that they would write to the person who took an interest in him (a Mlle Darbel – that was the name she had given) and ask her to take him away.
The child made no answer. He allowed himself to be led back to the little room, where he was locked in. Next day they looked for him in vain. He had run away. He had come to the conclusion that the headmaster, to whose care he had been committed since his earliest childhood (so long ago that he had no definite recollection of any surroundings but those of the school), and who had always been kind to him, must be convinced of his guilt.
There was, therefore, no reason why the Lady in Black should not also believe that he was a thief. He would choose death rather than have the Lady In Black believe him to be a thief! So he had run away, making his escape at night over the garden wall. He had run to the canal into which, after a final, supreme thought consecrated to the Lady in Black, he had thrown himself. Fortunately, in his despair, the poor little chap had forgotten that he could swim.
I have related this incident from Rouletabille’s childhood at such length, because I feel sure that, given his present circumstances, its full importance will be understood. If, even when he was ignorant of the fact that he was the son of Larsan, Ro
uletabille could not, without pain, look back upon that unfortunate episode and the thought that the Lady in Black should think him a thief, how much greater must his suffering now be, knowing himself to be united to Larsan by a parental bond? His mother, on learning what had happened at the school, would no doubt imagine that the instincts of the father were manifesting themselves in the son, and perhaps – perhaps (though more cruel than death itself) – she would actually rejoice.
For he was believed to be dead. They followed his tracks as far as the canal and found his cap in the water. How did he survive? In the most extraordinary fashion. When he clambered out of the water, the lad decided to leave the area where they were searching for him both in and out of the canal, and he thought of an original way of crossing the country without being questioned. He had not read The Stolen Letter, but his genius served him well. As always, he used his reason. He had often heard stories about boys who ran away from home in search of adventures, hiding by day in the woods and fields and travelling at night, but who were soon caught by the constabulary and taken back to their parents, due to hunger and to the fact that they dared not ask for food along the much-frequented roads they followed.
Rouletabille slept at night like everybody else, and by day walked boldly along the roads, making no attempt to hide. When he had dried his clothes (the season was fortunately well advanced, and he had nothing to fear from the cold), he tore them to shreds. He reduced them to rags, and openly begged, dirty and wretched-looking, holding out his hand to wayfarers, and declaring that if he did not take any money home, his parents would beat him. Most people took him for a gipsy child, since there were always a certain number of gipsy caravans in the neighbourhood.
Soon the strawberries ripened in the woods. He picked them and sold them in little baskets which he made out of leaves. He confessed to me that, had he not been tormented by the thought that the Lady in Black might believe him to be a thief, this would have been the happiest period of his life. His cunning and natural courage served him well throughout this expedition, which lasted several months. Whither was he bound? Marseilles. That was his goal.