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

I learned that the eldest son of Doucet, the French head-gardener of the Imperial conservatories at Krasnoie, had died from eating those grapes, which he had taken from those gathered for me to bring here. Imagine my dismay. I knew, however, that at the general’s table, grapes would not be eaten without having been washed, but I reproached myself for not having taken the precaution of leaving word that Doucet recommend that they be washed thoroughly. Still, I don’t suppose it would matter. I couldn’t see how my gift could be dangerous, but when I learned of little Doucet’s death this morning, I jumped into the first train and came straight here.”

“But, your Excellency,” interrupted Natacha, “we have not seen your grapes.”

“Ah, they have not been served yet? All the better. Thank goodness!”

“The Emperor’s grapes are diseased, then?” interrogated Rouletabille. “Phylloxera pest has got into the conservatories?”

“Nothing can stop it, Doucet told me. So he didn’t want me to leave last evening until he had washed the grapes. Unfortunately, I was pressed for time and I took them as they were, without any idea that the mixture they spray on the grapes to protect them was so deadly. It appears that in the vineyard country they have such accidents every year. They call it, I think, the... the mixture...”

“The Bordeaux mixture,” was heard in Rouletabille’s trembling voice “And do you know what it is, Your Excellency, this Bordeaux mixture?”

“Why, no.”

At this moment the general came down the stairs, clinging to the banister and supported by Matrena Petrovna.

“Well,” continued Rouletabille, watching Natacha, “the Bordeaux mixture which covered the grapes you brought the general yesterday was nothing more nor less than arsenate of soda.”

“Ah, God!” cried Natacha.

As for Matrena Petrovna, she uttered a low exclamation and let go the general, who almost fell down the staircase. Everybody rushed. The general laughed. Matrena, under the stringent look of Rouletabille, stammered that she had suddenly felt faint. At last they were all together in the veranda. The general settled back on his sofa and inquired:

“Well, now, were you just saying something, my dear marshal, about some grapes you have brought me?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Natacha, quite frightened, “and what he said isn’t pleasant at all. The son of Doucet, the court gardener, has just been poisoned by the same grapes that monsieur le marschal, it appears, brought you.”

“Where was this? Grapes? What grapes? I haven’t seen any grapes!” exclaimed Matrena. “I noticed you, yesterday, marshal, out in the garden, but you went away almost immediately, and I certainly was surprised that you did not come in. What is this story?”

“Well, we must clear this matter up. It is absolutely necessary that we know what happened to those grapes.”

“Certainly,” said Rouletabille, “they could cause a catastrophe.”

“If it has not happened already,” fretted the marshal.

“But how? Where are they? Whom did you give them to?”

“I carried them in a white cardboard box, the first one that came to hand in Doucet’s place. I came here the first time and didn’t find you. I returned again with the box, and the general was just lying down. I was pressed for my train and Michael Nikolaievitch and Boris Alexandrovitch were in the garden, so I asked them to execute my commission, and I laid the box down near them on the little garden table, telling them not to forget to tell you it was necessary to wash the grapes as Doucet expressly recommended.”

“But it is unbelievable! It is terrible!” quavered Matrena. “Where can the grapes be? We must know.”

“Absolutely,” approved Rouletabille.

“We must ask Boris and Michael,” said Natacha. “Good God! surely they have not eaten them! Perhaps they are sick.”

“Here they are,” said the general. All turned. Michael and Boris were coming up the steps. Rouletabille, who was in a shadowed corner under the main staircase, did not lose a single play of muscle on the two faces which for him were two problems to solve. Both faces were smiling; too smiling, perhaps.

“Michael! Boris! Come here,” cried Feodor Feodorovitch. “What have you done with the grapes from monsieur le marechal?”

They both looked at him upon this brusque interrogation, seemed not to understand, and then, suddenly recalling, they declared very naturally that they had left them on the garden table and had not thought about them.

“You forgot my caution, then?” said Count Kaltzof severely.

“What caution?” said Boris. “Oh, yes, the washing of the grapes. Doucet’s caution.”

“Do you know what has happened to Doucet with those grapes? His eldest son is dead, poisoned. Do you understand now why we are anxious to know what has become of my grapes?”

“But they ought to be out there on the table,” said Michael.

“No one can find them anywhere,” declared Matrena, who, no less than Rouletabille, watched every change in the countenances of the two officers. “How did it happen that you went away yesterday evening without saying good-bye, without seeing us, without troubling yourselves whether or not the general might need you?”

“Madame,” said Michael, coldly, in military fashion, as though he replied to his superior officer himself, “we have ample excuse to offer you and the general. It is necessary that we make an admission, and the general will pardon us, I am sure. Boris and I, during the promenade, happened to quarrel. That quarrel was in full swing when we reached here and we were discussing the way to end it most promptly when monsieur le marechal entered the garden. We must make that our excuse for giving divided attention to what he had to say. As soon as he was gone we had only one thought, to get away from here to settle our difference with arms in our hands.”

“Without speaking to me about it!” interrupted Trehassof. “I never will pardon that.”

“You fight at such a time, when the general is threatened! It is as though you fought between yourselves in the face of the enemy. It is treason!” added Matrena.

“Madame,” said Boris, “we did not fight. Someone pointed out our fault, and I offered my excuses to Michael Nikolaievitch, who generously accepted them. Is that not so, Michael Nikolaievitch?”

“And who is this that pointed out your fault?” demanded the marshal.

“Natacha.”

“Bravo, Natacha. Come, embrace me, my daughter.”

The general pressed his daughter effusively to his broad chest.

“And I hope you will not have further disputing,” he cried, looking over Natacha’s shoulder.

“We promise you that, General,” declared Boris. “Our lives belong to you.”