“In that case?”
“In that case, someone else has charged himself with this sinister task.”
“Someone else has cut off the finger? An accomplice?”
“More than an accomplice, his chief? The brain which has devised these combinations is not his. He is not the man who has staged the adventure. He is only an instrument, some common rogue chosen for his fleshless aspect. The man who holds the threads remains invisible; and he is formidable.”
The notary shivered.
“One would say you knew him.”
After a pause she answered slowly:
“It is possible that I do know him. If my instinct does not deceive me, the master criminal is the man who I handed over to justice, this d’Estreicher of whom I spoke just now. While he is in prison his accomplices—for there are several of them—have taken up the work he began and are trying to carry it through. … Yes, yes,” she added, “one can well believe that it is d’Estreicher who has arranged the whole business. He has been engaged in the affair for years; and such a machination is entirely in accord with his cunning and wily spirit. We must be on our guard against him. Even in prison he is a dangerous adversary.”
“Dangerous … dangerous …” said the notary, trying to reassure himself. “I don’t see what threatens us. Besides, the affair draws to its end. As regards the precious stones, open the codicil. And as far as I am concerned, my task is performed.”
“It isn’t a matter of knowing whether your task is performed, Maître Delarue,” Dorothy answered in the same thoughtful tone. “It’s a matter of escaping a danger which is not quite clear to me but which permits me to expect anything, which I foresee more and more clearly. Where will it come from? I don’t know. But it exists.”
“It’s terrible,” groaned Maître Delarue. “How are we to defend ourselves? What are we to do?”
“What are we to do?”
She turned towards the little room which served as alcove. The man no longer stirred, his head and face buried in the shadow.
“Question him. You quite understand that this super did not come here alone. They have entrusted him with this post, but the others are on the watch, the agents of d’Estreicher. They are waiting in the wings for the result of the comedy. They are spying on us. Perhaps they hear us. Question him. He is going to tell us the measures to be taken against us in case of a check.”
“He will not speak.”
“But he will—he will. He is in our hands; and it is entirely to his interest to win our forgiveness for the part he has played. He is one of those people who are always on the side of the stronger. … Look at him.”
The man remained motionless. Not a gesture. However his attitude did not look natural. Sitting as he was, half bent over, he should have lost his balance.
“Errington … Webster … light him up,” Dorothy ordered.
Simultaneously the rays from the two electric lamps fell on him.
Some seconds passed.
“Ah!” sighed Dorothy, who was the first to grasp the terrible fact; and she started back.
All six of them were shocked by the same sight, at first inexplicable. The bust and the head which they believed to be motionless, were bending a little forward, with a movement which was hardly perceptible, but which did not cease. At the bottom of the orbits rose the eyes, quite round, eyes full of terror, which gleamed, like carbuncles, in the concentric fires of the two lamps. His mouth moved convulsively as if to utter a cry which did not issue from it. Then the head settled down on to the chest, dragging the bust with it. They saw for some seconds the ebony hilt of a dagger, the blade of which half buried in the right shoulder, at the junction with the neck, was streaming with blood. And finally the whole body huddled on to itself. Slowly, like a wounded beast, the man sank to his knees on the stone floor, and suddenly fell in a heap.
XIV
The Fourth Medal
Violent though this sensational turn was, it provoked from those who witnessed it neither outcries nor disorder. Something mastered their terror, smothered their words, and restrained their gestures: the impossibility of conceiving how this murder had been committed. The impossible resurrection of the Marquis was transformed into a miracle of death quite as impossible; but they could not deny this miracle since it had taken place before their eyes. In truth, they had the impression, since no living being had entered, that death itself had stepped over the threshold, crossed the room to the man, struck him in their presence with its invisible hand, and then gone away, leaving the murderous weapon in the corpse. None but a phantom could have passed. None but a phantom could have killed.
“Errington,” said Dorothy, who had recovered her coolness more quickly than her companions, “there’s no one on the staircase, is there? Dario, surely the window is too small for anyone to slip through? Webster and Kourobelef look to the walls of the alcove.”
She stooped and took the dagger from the wound. No convulsion stirred the victim’s body. It was indeed a corpse. An examination of the dagger and the clothes gave no clue.
Errington and Dario rendered an account of their mission. The staircase? Empty. The window? Too narrow.
They joined the Russian and the American, as did Dorothy also; and all five of them examined and sounded the walls of the alcove with such minuteness that Dorothy expressed the absolute conviction of all of them when she declared in a tone of finality:
“No entrance. It is impossible to admit that any one passed that way.”
“Then?” stuttered the notary, who was sitting on the stool and had not moved for the excellent reason that his legs refused to be of the slightest use to him. “Then?”
He asked the question with a kind of
