Read Ebook: Dead Man's Rock by Quiller Couch Arthur

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Ebook has 2116 lines and 90935 words, and 43 pages

PART I

IN his study, situated in the Rue Saint-Dominique, the Minister of War was walking to and fro. In furious fashion he twisted his moustache, which seemed even redder than usual, as he nervously fingered his eyeglass, in a manner which promised anything but a cordial welcome to any who entered his presence. Doubtless, his officers were well acquainted with the reasons of his ill-humour, for a profound silence reigned all around, and the great man's solitude was undisturbed save by the querulous twitterings of the birds in the garden. A minute later, he seemed to lose all patience, and, marching to the mantelpiece, he pressed an electric bell. An usher, with anxious mien, at once approached.

"Has Colonel Vallenot returned?" exclaimed the Minister, in fierce tones.

The servant shrunk away, as though he would have liked the earth to open and swallow him; then he stammered, faintly--

"I do not think so, sir--I will ask--"

The General became purple with rage. An oath burstforth from his lips like a bombshell, then a second, the third was useless. The door was again closed, the servant had vanished.

"What can Vallenot be doing all the time he has been gone?" muttered the Minister, as he resumed his pacing about the room. "Ah! This is the way I am served!"

Before he could finish, the usher had opened the door, and announced--

"Colonel Vallenot."

A man of fifty years of age, tall and thin, with blue eyes and light moustache, marched briskly into the room, and, after saluting his superior in friendly wise, said--

"You seem to have lost all patience, General. I found an officer waiting for me at the very door of the War Office. The fact is, this has been anything but a small matter. After all, I have done everything possible--"

"Indeed!" interrupted the Minister, impatiently. "You have just come from Vanves?"

"Yes, General."

"Alone?"

"No; I took with me one of our cleverest detectives. You had not given me this authorization, but I took upon myself the responsibility."

"You have done quite right. But are you sure he is trustworthy?"

"Absolutely. He is a former sub-officer. Besides, I did not reveal to him the real object of my researches; he knows nothing important, and imagines he has simply been my auxiliary in an inquiry into the causes of a catastrophe hitherto ill-explained. We have nothing to fear in this direction."

"Well, what has been the result of your researches?"

"If you will allow me, General, we will divide the inquiry into two parts, one consisting of moral circumstances, the other of material facts. The affair is more complicated than you at first thought, and when I have finished, your embarrassment, instead of having lessened, will probably have increased."

"Impossible!"

He sat down before the desk, leaned over on his elbows, and, motioning to the Colonel to take a seat in an armchair by his side, said--

"Now, tell me everything."

The Minister interrupted.

"The effects of melinite, probably?"

"No, General, something quite different! Increase a hundred-fold the effects of the powder actually employed in charging our bombshells, and then perhaps you will have the equivalent of the destructive power revealed by the explosion of General de Tr?mont's laboratory."

The Minister shook his head.

"Yes; that is what he told me the last time I saw him at the Artillery meeting. He was on the trace of a discovery destined to give to our cannons so crushing a superiority that we were to become for long the arbiters of victory. The struggle against us would have been marked by such massacres, accomplished with such absolute precision, that our military supremacy would have been certain once more. Has this had anything to do with the discovery?"

"Then you admit, General, that malevolence may not have been entirely foreign to this mishap!"

"I admit nothing, Vallenot. I suspect everything. When you have told me all you know, we will talk it over. Continue."

"On the site of what had been the house, and which now offered to the gaze nothing but a gaping hole, at the bottom of which appeared a cellar, the vaults of which had been burst open. A staved-in barrel of wine formed a red pool on the floor. Not a trace of the staircase remained. The very steps had disappeared, and the stones were broken up into fragments as large as pigeons' eggs. Never should I have thought such a crumbling possible. Wonderful to relate, one side of a wall which must have belonged to a wash-house remained standing, along with a narrow window, in the iron bars of which a cloth-rag was waving. We were all staring at this solitary vestige of the disaster, when the chief of the detective force cautiously approached the spot. Raising his stick, he touched the shapeless rag hanging there, picked it up from the ground with an exclamation of surprise, and exposed it to our gaze. It was a human arm, still covered with both coat and shirt sleeves, cut off at the elbow, and covered with blood, the hand quite black."

"Most extraordinary!" exclaimed the Minister.

"Ah!" said the Minister; "then he, too, thought the affair might be the result of a crime."

"Yes, General; and, as he spoke, he examined with the most minute attention the smutty, blackened hand. Carefully separating the fingers, he drew from the fourth finger a ring, which none of us had noticed; and, holding it aloft in triumph, said, 'The question is decided, if this ring belongs to the General. If not, we still doubtless possess a valuable piece of circumstantial evidence, which will permit us to unravel the mystery.'"

"A ring! The deuce! I never remember seeing Tr?mont wearing a ring! No! I would take my oath on it. He never wore an ornament of any kind in his life, much less a ring. It would have been absurd in a man who was in the habit of handling acids from morning to night! No metal would have resisted the oxidising action of the substances he used in his experiments. But what kind of a ring was it?"

"An engagement ring, General. When rubbed with a glove-skin, the gold circle shone out, freed from the soot which tarnished it. Our agent fingered it a moment, then pressed it with his nail, and the ring separated in two. 'Look here, gentlemen!' he exclaimed. 'There are letters engraved in the interior. Whatever happens, we now hold a clue.'"

"This fellow has, indeed, proved himself very clever, Vallenot," said the Minister. "Up to the present, I find that he is the only one who has shown any initiative. I must remember it."

"Wait a little, General. I have not yet reached the end. The Government agent had taken up the engagement ring, and was examining it. He finally placed it coolly in his pocket, with the words, 'We will look into this later on.' And there we all stood, rather discountenanced by the strange intervention of the magistrate in leaving our curiosity thus disappointed. On due reflection, perhaps he was right in postponing for a more thorough examination the information destined to result from this discovery, in not publishing proofs which might be of supreme importance. Still, if he wished to keep the secret of his investigations, he was disappointed, for at that very moment our agent, pursuing his inquiries, had removed the double sleeve, and laid bare the naked arm. This time it was no longer possible to conceal what he had found. On the forearm, between the wrist and the bleeding end, a blue tattooing appeared, representing a heart surrounded with flames, around which could be read the words 'Hans and Minna,' and beneath the German word 'Immer,' signifying 'Always.' 'Gentlemen,' said the Government agent, fixing his eyeglass, 'I demand of you the utmost discretion. A single word on what we have just discovered might have the most serious consequences. We may be in presence of an anarchist plot, or be obliged to suspect foreign interference. The affair is assuming quite unexpected proportions. In all probability a crime has been committed.'"

"The deuce!" exclaimed the Minister. "I say, Vallenot, this is becoming serious! Perhaps we ought at once to inform the President of the Board of--"

"The secretary of the Prefect of Police must have done so already. As soon as he saw how matters were turning, he did not wait for the end of the inquiry, but immediately rode off to the Place Beauvau."

"The first thing to do is to prevent the press from saying anything silly. If we have a crow to pick with foreign agents, for Tr?mont's investigations were suspected in Europe, it is of the highest importance that no suspicions be aroused, so that we may try to seize the authors of this guilty attempt."

"That is what we thought, General, and, consequently, all arrangements have at once been taken. It was absolutely necessary to throw public opinion on a false scent. Accordingly, the theory of a chance accident was inevitable. It was at once decided that all communications made to the press should have this object in view. General de Tr?mont was rather eccentric, we must say, engaged in commercial chemical investigations, and it was his imprudence which had brought about the accident which has now cost him his life."

"Poor Tr?mont! So fine a savant as he was! Well! well! State reasons must predominate. But it is hard to contribute in heaping calumnies on an old comrade!"

"Do not have such thoughts, General," interrupted Colonel Vallenot, with a smile. "There are surprises in store for us which will, doubtless, lessen your regret."

"What do you mean?" said the rough soldier, frowning. "You do not intend to utter calumnies against my friend from childhood, my comrade in war?"

"God forbid, General! I shall simply give you the facts on which you desired information. If I have the misfortune to displease you, you will not be angry with me; you are too just for that."

"What is the meaning of this silence? Continue right to the end, Colonel; speak freely."

"So I intend to do, General. Well, then, the secretary of the Prefect of Police had just undertaken to supply the version arranged by us to the numerous reporters waiting there, held in check by the line of troops, and to inform the Minister of the Interior, in case the police might have to be called in, when a great uproar arose from the direction of the village. A tumult of cries and shouts was heard. The lieutenant was preparing to go and see what was happening, when a man, breaking through the sentinels, ran up to us, bare-headed, with troubled countenance, and exclaiming, in tones of despair, 'My master! O God! What has happened to the house? Not one stone left on another!' Thereupon he halted, sank down on the ruins, and began to weep bitterly. We looked at him in silence, moved by his grief, and foreseeing some speedy enlightenment on the dark situation we were in. 'Who are you, my friend?' asked the Government agent. The man raised his head, passed his hand over his eyes to brush away his tears, and, raising up to us a countenance at once intelligent and determined, said, 'The General's head servant, sir, for the last twenty years. Ah! If I had been there, this disaster might perhaps have been avoided! At any rate, I would have died with him!'"

"It was Baudoin!" exclaimed the General. "The brave fellow had escaped! Ah! That is fortunate. We shall learn something from him!"

"Yes, General, but not the enlightenment we expected. Rather the contrary."

"In what way the contrary?"

"I will explain. The night before, about six o'clock, the General was in his garden, strolling about, after working all day in the laboratory, when a telegram reached him from Vanves. He read it, continued his walk for a few minutes, with bowed head, as though in profound meditation, then he called Baudoin. 'You must set out for Paris,' he said to him. 'I have an important order to give to my chemist, who lives in the Place de la Sorbonne. Give him this letter, then go to M. Baradier and pay him my respects. Then dine, and, if you like to spend the evening at the theatre, you may do so; here is a five franc piece. Return to-morrow morning with the chemicals.'

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