The Three Eyes Part 15

I lost my temper:

"Oh, it's that you're speaking of! Well, to begin with, the will isn't valid. I have a letter from my uncle . . ."

He interrupted me:

"That letter doesn't affect the validity of the will. Any one will tell you that."

"And then?" I exclaimed. "Granting that it is valid, Noel Dorgeroux mentions n.o.body in it except myself for the Lodge and his G.o.d-daughter for the Yard. The only one who benefits, except myself, is Berangere."

"Quite so, quite so," replied the man, without changing countenance.

"But n.o.body knows what has become of Berangere Ma.s.signac. Suppose that she were dead . . ."

I grew indignant:

"She's not dead! It's quite impossible that she should be dead!"

"Very well," he said, calmly. "Then suppose that she's alive, that she's been kidnapped or that she's in hiding. In any event, one fact is certain, which is that she is under twenty, consequently she's a minor and consequently she cannot administer her own property. From the legal point of view she exists only in the person of her natural representative, her guardian, who in this case happens to be her father."

"And her father?" I asked, anxiously.

"Is myself."

He put on his hat, took it off again with a bow and said:

"Theodore Ma.s.signac, forty-two years of age, a native of Toulouse, a commercial traveller in wines."

It was a violent blow. The truth suddenly appeared to me in all its brutal nakedness. This man, this shady and wily individual, was Berangere's father; and he had come in the name of the two accomplices, working in their interest and placing at their service the powers with which circ.u.mstances had favoured him.

"Her father?" I murmured. "Can it be possible? Are you her father?"

"Why, yes," he replied, with a fresh outburst of hilarity, "I'm the girl's daddy and, as such, the beneficiary, with the right to draw the profits for the next eighteen months, of Noel Dorgeroux's bequest. For eighteen months only! You can imagine that I'm itching to take possession of the estate, to complete the works and to prepare for the fourteenth of May an inauguration worthy in every respect of my old friend Dorgeroux."

I felt the beads of perspiration trickling down my forehead. He had spoken the words which were expected and foretold. He was the man of whom public opinion had said:

"When the time comes, some one will emerge from the darkness."

CHAPTER IX

THE MAN WHO EMERGED FROM THE DARKNESS

"When the time comes," they had said, "some one will emerge from the darkness. When the time comes, some one will remove the mask from his face."

That face now beamed expansively before me. That some one, who was about to play the game of the two accomplices, was Berangere's father.

And the same question continued to suggest itself, each time more painfully than the last:

"What had been Berangere's part in the horrible tragedy?"

There was a long, heavy silence between us. I began to stride across the room and stopped near the chimney, where a dying fire was smouldering. Thence I could see Ma.s.signac in a mirror, without his perceiving it; and his face, in repose, surprised me by a gloomy expression which was not unknown to me. I had probably seen some photograph of him in Berangere's possession.

"It's curious," I said, "that your daughter should not have written to you."

I had turned round very briskly; nevertheless he had had time to expand his mouth and to resume his smile:

"Alas," he said, "the dear child hardly ever wrote to me and cared little about her poor daddy. I, on the other hand, am very fond of her. A daughter's always a daughter, you know. So you can imagine how I jumped for joy when I read in the papers that she had come into money. I should at last be able to devote myself to her and to devote all my strength and all my energy to the great and wonderful task of defending her interests and her fortune."

He spoke in a honeyed voice and a.s.sumed a false and unctuous air which exasperated me. I questioned him:

"How do you propose to fulfill that task?"

"Why, quite simply," he replied, "by continuing Noel Dorgeroux's work."

"In other words?"

"By throwing open the doors of the amphitheatre."

"Which means?"

"Which means that I shall show to the public the pictures which your uncle used to produce."

"Have you ever seen them?"

"No. I speak from your evidence and your interviews."

"Do you know how my uncle used to produce them?"

"I do, since yesterday evening."

"Then you have seen the ma.n.u.script of which I was robbed and the formula stolen by the murderer?"

"Since yesterday evening, I say."

"But how?" I exclaimed, excitedly.

"How? By a simple trick."

"What do you mean?"

He showed me a bundle of newspapers of the day before and continued, with a smirking air:

"If you had read yesterday's newspapers, or at least the more important of them, carefully, you would have noticed a discreet advertis.e.m.e.nt in the special column. It read, 'Proprietor of the Yard wishes to purchase the two doc.u.ments necessary for working. He can be seen this evening in the Place Vendome.' Nothing much in the advertis.e.m.e.nt, was there? But, to the possessors of the two doc.u.ments, how clear in its meaning . . . and what a bait! To them it was the one opportunity of making a profit, for, with all the publicity attaching to the affair, they were unable to benefit by the result of their robberies without revealing their ident.i.ty to the public. My calculation was correct. After I had waited an hour by the Vendome Column, a very luxurious motor-car picked me up, you might almost say without stopping, and, ten minutes afterwards, dropped me at the etoile, with the doc.u.ments in my possession. I spent the night in reading the ma.n.u.script. Oh, my dear sir, what a genius your uncle was!

What a revolution his discovery! And in what a masterly way he expounded it! I never read anything so methodical and so lucid! All that remains for me to do is mere child's-play."

I had listened to the man Ma.s.signac with ever-increasing amazement.

Was he a.s.suming that anybody would for a moment credit so ridiculous a tale?