The Woman of Mystery Part 15

"What's that you say?"

The officer resumed, with a smile that might mean anything:

"Well, d.a.m.n it all, everybody knows Prince Conrad! He's the Don Juan of the family. He'd been staying at the chateau for some weeks and had time to make an impression, had he not? . . . And then . . . and then to get tired. . . . Besides, the major maintained that the woman and her two servants had tried to poison the prince. So you see . . ."

He did not finish his sentence. Paul was bending over him and, with a face distorted with rage, took him by the throat and shouted:

"Another word, you dog, and I'll throttle the life out of you! Ah, you can thank your stars that you're wounded! . . . If you weren't . . . if you weren't . . . !"

And Bernard, beside himself with rage, joined in:

"Yes, you can think yourself lucky. As for your Prince Conrad, he's a swine, let me tell you . . . and I mean to tell _him_ so to his face.

. . . He's a swine like all his beastly family and like the whole lot of you! . . ."

They left the Oberleutnant utterly dazed and unable to understand a word of this sudden outburst. But, once outside, Paul had a fit of despair.

His nerves relaxed. All his anger and all his hatred were changed into infinite depression. He could hardly contain his tears.

"Come, Paul," exclaimed Bernard, "surely you don't believe a word . . . ?"

"No, no, and again no! But I can guess what happened. That drunken brute of a prince must have tried to make eyes at elisabeth and to take advantage of his position. Just think! A woman, alone and defenseless: that was a conquest worth making! What tortures the poor darling must have undergone, what humiliations! . . . A daily struggle, with threats and brutalities. . . . And, at the last moment, death, to punish her for her resistance. . . ."

"We shall avenge her, Paul," said Bernard, in a low voice.

"We shall; but shall I ever forget that it was on my account, through my fault, that she stayed here? I will explain what I mean later on; and you will understand how hard and unjust I have been. . . . And yet . . ."

He stood gloomily thinking. He was haunted by the image of the major and he repeated:

"And yet . . . and yet . . . there are things that seem so strange.

All that afternoon, French troops kept streaming in through the valley of the Liseron and the village of Ornequin in order to resist any counter-attack by the enemy. Paul's section was resting; and he and Bernard took advantage of this to make a minute search in the park and among the ruins of the chateau. But there was no clue to reveal to them where elisabeth's body lay hidden.

At five o'clock, they gave Rosalie and Jerome a decent burial. Two crosses were set up on a little mound strewn with flowers. An army chaplain came and said the prayers for the dead. And Paul was moved to tears when he knelt on the grave of those two faithful servants whose devotion had been their undoing.

Then also Paul promised to avenge. And his longing for vengeance evoked in his mind, with almost painful intensity, the hated image of the major, that image which had now become inseparable from his recollections of the Comtesse d'Andeville.

He led Bernard away from the grave and asked:

"Are you sure that you were not mistaken in connecting the major and the supposed peasant-woman who questioned you at Corvigny?"

"Absolutely."

"Then come with me. I told you of a woman's portrait. We will go and look at it and you shall tell me what impression it makes upon you."

Paul had noticed that that part of the castle which contained Hermine d'Andeville's bedroom and boudoir had not been entirely demolished by the explosion of either the mines or sh.e.l.ls. It was possible that the boudoir was still in its former condition.

The staircase had been destroyed; and they had to clamber up the shattered masonry in order to reach the first floor. Traces of the corridor were visible here and there. All the doors were gone; and the rooms presented an appearance of pitiful chaos.

"It's here," said Paul, pointing to an open place between two pieces of wall that remained standing as by a miracle.

It was indeed Hermine d'Andeville's boudoir, shattered and dilapidated, cracked from top to bottom and filled with plaster and rubbish, but quite recognizable and containing all the furniture which Paul had noticed on the evening of his marriage. The window-shutters darkened the room partly, but there was enough light for Paul to see the whereabouts of the wall opposite. And he at once exclaimed:

"The portrait has been taken away!"

It was a great disappointment to him and, at the same time, a proof of the great importance which his enemy attached to the portrait, which could only have been removed because it const.i.tuted an overwhelming piece of evidence.

"I a.s.sure you," said Bernard, "that this does not affect my opinion in the least. There was no need to verify my conviction about the major and that peasant-woman at Corvigny. Whose portrait was it?"

"I told you, a woman."

"What woman? Was it a picture which my father hung there, one of the pictures of his collection?"

"That was it," said Paul, welcoming the opportunity of throwing his brother-in-law off the scent.

Opening one of the shutters, he saw a mark on the wall of the rectangular s.p.a.ce which the picture used to occupy; and he was able to perceive, from certain details, that the removal had been effected in a hurry. For instance, the gilt scroll had dropped from the frame and was lying on the floor. Paul picked it up stealthily so that Bernard should not see the inscription engraved upon it.

But, while he was examining the panel more attentively after Bernard had unfastened the other shutter, he gave an exclamation.

"What's the matter?" asked Bernard.

"There . . . look . . . that signature on the wall . . . where the picture was: a signature and a date."

It was written in pencil; two lines across the white plaster, at a man's height. The date, "Wednesday evening, 16 September, 1914," followed by the signature: "Major Hermann."

Major Hermann! Even before Paul was aware of it, his eyes had seized upon a detail in which all the significance of those two lines of writing was concentrated; and, while Bernard came forward to look in his turn, he muttered, in boundless surprise:

"Hermann! . . . Hermine! . . ."

The two words were almost alike. Hermine began with the same letters as the Christian or surname which the major had written, after his rank, on the wall. Major Hermann! The Comtesse Hermine! H, E, R, M: The four letters on the dagger with which Paul had nearly been killed! H, E, R, M: the four letters on the dagger of the spy whom he had captured in the church-steeple!

Bernard said:

"It looks to me like a woman's writing. But, if so. . . ." And he continued thoughtfully, "If so . . . what conclusion are we to draw?

Either the peasant-woman and Major Hermann are one and the same person, which means that the peasant-woman is a man or that the major is not, or else we are dealing with two distinct persons, a woman and a man. I believe that is how it is, in spite of the uncanny resemblance between that man and that woman. For, after all, how can we suppose that the same person can have written this signature yesterday evening, pa.s.sed through the French lines and spoken to me at Corvigny disguised as a peasant-woman . . . and then be able to return here, disguised as a German major, blow up the house, take to flight and, after killing some of his own soldiers, make his escape in a motor-car?"

Paul, absorbed by his thoughts, did not answer. Presently he went into the adjoining room, which separated the boudoir from the set of rooms which his wife had occupied. Of these nothing remained except debris.

But the room in between had not suffered so very much; and it was very easy to see, by the wash-hand-stand and the condition of the bed, that it was used as a bedroom and that some one had slept in it the night before.

On the table Paul found some German newspapers and a French one, dated 10 September, in which the _communique_ telling of the great victory of the Marne was struck out with two great dashes in red pencil and annotated with the word "Lies!" followed by the initial H.

"We're in Major Hermann's room right enough," said Paul to Bernard.

"And Major Hermann," Bernard declared, "burnt some compromising papers last night. Look at that heap of ashes in the fire-place." He stooped and picked up a few envelopes, a few half-burnt sheets of paper containing consecutive words, nothing but incoherent sentences. On turning his eyes to the bed, however, he saw under the bolster a parcel of clothes hidden or perhaps forgotten in the hurry of departure. He pulled them out and at once cried: "I say, just look at this!"

"At what?" asked Paul, who was searching another part of the room.