Through the Wall Part 65

"What a man!" muttered Coquenil.

"We know the facts," went on Hauteville sternly, "we know why you killed Martinez and why you disguised yourself as a wood carver."

The prisoner's face lighted with a mocking smile. "If you know all that, why waste time questioning me?"

"You're a good actor, sir, but we shall strip off your mask and quiet your impudence. Look at the girl in this _false_ picture which you had cunningly made in Brussels. Look at her! Who is she? There is the key to the mystery!

There is the reason for your killing Martinez! _He knew the truth about this girl_."

Now the prisoner's pulse was running wild, faster and faster, but with no more violent spurtings and leapings; the red column throbbed swiftly and faintly at the bottom of the tube as if the heart were weakening.

"A hundred and sixty to the minute," whispered Duprat to the magistrate.

"It is dangerous to go on."

Hauteville shrugged his shoulders.

"Martinez knew the truth," he went on, "Martinez held your secret. How had Martinez come upon it? Who was Martinez? A billiard player, a shallow fellow, vain of his conquests over silly women. The last man in Paris, one would say, to interfere with your high purposes or penetrate the barriers of wealth and power that surrounded you."

"You--you flatter me! What am I, pray, a marquis or a duke?" chaffed the other, but the trembling dial belied his gayety, and even from the side Coquenil could see that the man's face was as tense and pallid as the sheet before him.

"As I said, the key to this murder," pursued the magistrate, "is the secret that Martinez held. Without that nothing can be understood and no justice can be done. The whole aim of this investigation has been to get the secret and _we have got it!_ Groener, you have delivered yourself into our hands, you have written this secret for us in words of terror and we have read them, we know what Martinez knew when you took his life, we know the story of the medal that he wore on his breast. Do _you_ know the story?"

"I tell you I know nothing about this man or his medal," flung back the prisoner.

"No? Then you will be glad to hear the story. It was a medal of solid gold, awarded Martinez by the city of Paris for conspicuous bravery in saving lives at the terrible Charity Bazaar fire. You have heard of the Charity Bazaar fire, Groener?"

"Yes, I--I have heard of it."

"But perhaps you never heard the details or, if you did, you may have forgotten them. _Have_ you forgotten the details of the Charity Bazaar fire?"

Charity Bazaar fire! Three times, with increasing emphasis, the magistrate had spoken those sinister words, yet the dial gave no sign, the red column throbbed on steadily.

"I am not interested in the subject," answered the accused.

"Ah, but you are, or you ought to be. It was such a shocking affair.

Hundreds burned to death, think of that! Cowardly men trampling women and children! Our n.o.blest families plunged into grief and bereavement!

Princesses burned to death! d.u.c.h.esses burned to death! Beautiful women burned to death! _Rich women burned to death!_ Think of it, Groener, and--"

he signaled the operator, "_and look at it!_"

As he spoke the awful tragedy began in one of those extraordinary moving pictures that the French make after a catastrophe, giving to the imitation even greater terrors than were in the genuine happening. Here before them now leaped redder and fiercer flames than ever crackled through the real Charity Bazaar; here were women and children perishing in more savage torture than the actual victims endured; here were horrors piled on horrors, exaggerated horrors, manufactured horrors, until the spectacle became unendurable, until one all but heard the screams and breathed the sickening odor of burning human flesh.

Coquenil had seen this picture in one of the boulevard theaters and, straightway, after the precious nine-second clew of the word test, he had sent Papa Tignol off for it posthaste, during the supper intermission. If the mere word "Charity Bazaar" had struck this man dumb with fear what would the thing itself do, the revolting, ghastly thing?

That was the question now, what would this hideous moving picture do to a fire-fearing a.s.sa.s.sin already on the verge of collapse? Would it break the last resistance of his overwrought nerves or would he still hold out?

Silently, intently the three men waited, bending over the dial as the test proceeded, as the fiends of torture and death swept past in lurid triumph.

The picture machine whirled on with droning buzz, the accused sat still, eyes on the sheet, the red column pulsed steadily, up and down, up and down, now a little higher, now a little quicker, but--for a minute, for two minutes--nothing decisive happened, nothing that they had hoped for; yet Coquenil felt, he knew that something was going to happen, he _knew_ it by the agonized tension of the room, by the atmosphere of _pain_ about them.

If Groener had not spoken, he himself, in the poignancy of his own distress, must have cried out or stamped on the floor or broken something, just to end the silence.

Then, suddenly, the tension snapped, the prisoner sprang to his feet and, tearing his arm from the leather sleeve, he faced his tormentors desperately, eyes blazing, features convulsed:

"No, no, no!" he shrieked. "You dogs! You cowards!"

"Lights up," ordered Hauteville. Then to the guard: "Put the handcuffs on him."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'No, no, no!' he shrieked. 'You dogs! You cowards!'"]

But the prisoner would not be silenced. "What does all this prove?" he screamed in rage. "Nothing! Nothing! You make me look at disgusting, abominable pictures and--why _shouldn't_ my heart beat? Anybody's heart would beat--if he had a heart."

The judge paid no attention to this outburst, but went on in a tone as keen and cold as a knife: "Before you go to your cell, Groener, you shall hear what we charge against you. Your wife perished in the Charity Bazaar fire.

She was a very rich woman, probably an American, who had been married before and who had a daughter by her previous marriage. That daughter is the girl you call Alice. Her true name is Mary. She was in the fire with her mother and was rescued by Martinez, but the shock of seeing her mother burned to death _and, perhaps, the shock of seeing you refuse to save her mother----_"

"It's a lie!" yelled the prisoner.

"All this terror and anguish caused a violent mental disturbance in the girl and resulted in a failure of her memory. When she came out of the fire it was as if a curtain had fallen over her past life, she had lost the sense of her own personality, she did not know her own name, she was helpless, you could do as you pleased with her. _And she was a great heiress!_ If she lived, she inherited her mother's fortune; if she died, this fortune reverted to you. So shrinking, perhaps, from the actual killing of this girl, you destroyed her ident.i.ty; you gave it out that she, too, had perished in the flames and you proceeded to enjoy her stolen fortune while she sold candles in Notre-Dame church."

"You have no proof of it!" shouted Groener.

"No? What is this?" and he signaled the operator, whereupon the lights went down and the picture of Alice and the widow appeared again. "There is the girl whom you have wronged and defrauded. Now watch the woman, your Brussels accomplice, watch her carefully--carefully," he motioned to the operator and the smooth young widow faded gradually, while the face and form of another woman took her place beside the girl. "Now we have the picture as it was before you falsified it. Do you recognize _this_ face?"

"No," answered the prisoner, but his heart was pounding.

"It is your wife. Look!"

Under the picture came the inscription: "_To my dear husband Raoul with the love of Margaret and her little Mary_."

"I wish we had the dial on him now," whispered Duprat to M. Paul.

"There are your two victims!" accused the magistrate. "Mary and Margaret!

How long do you suppose it will take us to identify them among the Charity Bazaar unfortunates? It is a matter of a few hours' record searching. What must we look for? A rich American lady who married a Frenchman. Her name is Margaret. She had a daughter named Mary. The Frenchman's name is Raoul and he probably has a t.i.tle. We have, also, the lady's photograph and the daughter's photograph and a specimen of the lady's handwriting. Could anything be simpler? The first authority we meet on n.o.ble fortune hunters will tell us all about it. And then, M. Adolf Groener, we shall know whether it is a, marquis or a duke whose name _must be added to the list of distinguished a.s.sa.s.sins_."

He paused for a reply, but none came. The guard moved suddenly in the shadows and called for help.

"Lights!" said the doctor sharply and, as the lamps shone out, the prisoner was seen limp and white, sprawling over a chair.

Duprat hurried to him and pressed an ear to his heart.

"He has fainted," said the doctor.

Coquenil looked half pityingly at his stricken adversary. "Down and out,"

he murmured.

Duprat, meantime, was working over the prisoner, rubbing his wrists, loosening his shirt and collar.

"Ammonia--quick," he said to his a.s.sistant, and a moment later, with the strong fumes at his nostrils, Groener stirred and opened his eyes weakly.

Just then a sound was heard in the distance as of a galloping horse. The white-faced prisoner started and listened eagerly. Nearer and nearer came the rapid hoof beats, echoing through the deserted streets. Now the horse was crossing the little bridge near the hospital, now he was coming madly down the Boulevard du Palais. Who was this rider dashing so furiously through the peaceful night?

As they all turned wondering, the horse drew up suddenly before the palace and a voice was heard in sharp command. Then the great iron gates swung open and the horse stamped in.