The Secret of the Night by Gaston Leroux (ebook reader for surface pro txt) 📗

from there it went to the door of the servants’ stairway and mounted the stairs. That boot was too fine to be mounting a stairway reserved to servants and that Koupriane told me had been condemned, and it was that made me notice it in a moment; but just then you entered.”

“You never told me anything about it. Of course if I had known there was a boot-print...”

“I didn’t tell you anything about it because I had my reasons for that, and, anyway, the trace dried while I was telling you about my journey.”

“Ah, why not have told me later?”

“Because I didn’t know you yet.”

“Subtle devil! You will kill me. I can no longer... Let us go into the general’s chamber. We will wake him.”

“Remain here. Remain here. I have not told you anything. That boot-print preoccupied me, and later, when I could get away from the dining-room, I was not easy until I had climbed that stairway myself and gone to see that door, where I discovered what I have just told you and what I am going to tell you now.”

“What? What? In all you have said there has been nothing about the hat-pins.”

“We have come to them now.”

“And the bouquet attack, which is going to happen again? Why? Why?”

“This is it. When this evening you let me go to the general’s chamber, I examined the bolt of the door without your suspecting it. My opinion was confirmed. It was that way that the bomb was brought, and it is by that way that someone has prepared to return.”

“But how? You are sure the little hole is the way someone came? But what makes you think that is how they mean to return? You know well enough that, not having succeeded in the general’s chamber, they are at work in the dining-room.”

“Madame, it is probable, it is certain that they have given up the work in the dining-room since they have commenced this very day working again in the general’s chamber. Yes, someone returned, returned that way, and I was so sure of that, of the forthcoming return, that I removed the police in order to be able to study everything more at my ease. Do you understand now my confidence and why I have been able to assume so heavy a responsibility? It is because I knew I had only one thing to watch: one little hat-pin. It is not difficult, madame, to watch a single little hat-pin.”

“A mistake,” said Matrena, in a low voice. “Miserable little domovoi who told me nothing, me whom you let go to sleep on my mattress, in front of that door that might open any moment.”

“No, madame. For I was behind it!”

“Ah, dear little holy angel! But what were you thinking of! That door has not been watched this afternoon. In our absence it could have been opened. If someone has placed a bomb during our absence!”

“That is why I sent you at once in to the dining-room on that search that I thought would be fruitless, dear madame. And that is why I hurried upstairs to the bedroom. I went to the stairway door instantly. I had prepared for proof positive if anyone had pushed it open even half a millimeter. No, no one had touched the door in our absence.

“Ah, dear heroic little friend of Jesus! But listen to me. Listen to me, my angel. Ah, I don’t know where I am or what I say. My brain is no more than a flabby balloon punctured with pins, with little holes of hat-pins. Tell me about the hat-pins. Right off! No, at first, what is it that makes you believe—good God!—that someone will return by that door? How can you see that, all that, in a poor little hat-pin?”

“Madame, it is not a single hat-pin hole; there are two of them.

“Two hat-pin holes?”

“Yes, two. An old one and a new one. One quite new. Why this second hole? Because the old one was judged a little too narrow and they wished to enlarge it, and in enlarging it they broke off the point of a hat-pin in it. Madame, the point is there yet, filling up the little old hole and the piece of metal is very sharp and very bright.”

“Now I understand the examination of the hat-pins. Then it is so easy as that to get through a door with a hat-pin?”

“Nothing easier, especially if the panel is of pine. Sometimes one happens to break the point of a pin in the first hole. Then of necessity one makes a second. In order to commence the second hole, the point of the pin being broken, they have used the point of a pen-knife, then have finished the hole with the hat-pin. The second hole is still nearer the bolt than the first one. Don’t move like that, madame.”

“But they are going to come! They are going to come!”

“I believe so.”

“But I can’t understand how you can remain so quiet with such a certainty. Great heavens! what proof have you that they have not been there already?”

“Just an ordinary pin, madame, not a hat-pin this time. Don’t confuse the pins. I will show you in a little while.”

“He will drive me distracted with his pins, dear light of my eyes! Bounty of Heaven! God’s envoy! Dear little happiness-bearer!”

In her transport she tried to take him in her trembling arms, but he waved her back. She caught her breath and resumed:

“Did the examination of all the hat-pins tell you anything?”

“Yes. The fifth hat-pin of Mademoiselle Natacha’s, the one in the toque out in the veranda, has the tip newly broken off.”

“O misery!” cried Matrena, crumpling in her chair.

Rouletabille raised her.

“What would you have? I have examined your own hat-pins. Do you think I would have suspected you if I had found one of them broken? I would simply have thought that someone had used your property for an abominable purpose, that is all.”

“Oh, that is true, that is true. Pardon me. Mother of Christ, this boy crazes me! He consoles me and he horrifies me. He makes me think of such dreadful things, and then he reassures me. He does what he wishes with me. What should I become without him?”

And this time she succeeded in taking his head in her two hands and kissing him passionately. Rouletabille pushed her back roughly.

“You keep me from seeing,” he said.

She was in tears over his rebuff. She understood now. Rouletabille during all this conversation had not ceased to watch through the open doors of Matrena’s room and the dressing-room the farther fatal door whose brass bolt shone in the yellow light of the night-lamp.

At last he made her a sign