The Secret of Sarek - Maurice Leblanc (easy to read books for adults list TXT) 📗

Don Luis smiled:

“The explanation is a little arbitrary; and I have a notion that François quite well understands that certain parts of the tragedy remain and must remain obscure to him. The great thing, don’t you think, is that he should not know that Vorski was his father?”

“He does not know and he never will.”

“And then⁠—and this is what I was coming to⁠—what name will he bear himself?”

“What do you mean?”

“Whose son will he believe himself to be? For you know as well as I do that the legal reality is this, that François Vorski died fifteen years ago, drowned in a shipwreck, and his grandfather with him. And Vorski died last year, stabbed by a fellow-prisoner. Neither of them is alive in the eyes of the law. So⁠ ⁠…”

Véronique nodded her head and smiled:

“So I don’t know. The position seems to me, as you say, incapable of explanation. But everything will come out all right.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re here to do it.”

It was his turn to smile:

“I can no longer take credit for the actions which I perform or the steps which I take. Everything is arranging itself a priori. Then why worry?”

“Am I not right to?”

“Yes,” he said, gravely. “The woman who has suffered all that you have must not be subjected to the least additional annoyance. And nothing shall happen to her after this, I swear. So what I suggest to you is this: long ago, you married against your father’s wish a very distant cousin, who died after leaving you a son, François. This son your father, to be revenged upon you, kidnapped and brought to Sarek. At your father’s death, the name of d’Hergemont became extinct and there is nothing to recall the events of your marriage.”

“But my name remains. Legally, in the official records, I am Véronique d’Hergemont.”

“Your maiden name disappears under your married name.”

“You mean under that of Vorski.”

“No, because you did not marry that fellow Vorski, but one of your cousins called⁠ ⁠…”

“Called what?”

“Jean Maroux. Here is a stamped certificate of your marriage to Jean Maroux, a marriage mentioned in your official records, as this other document shows.”

Véronique looked at Don Luis in amazement:

“But why? Why that name?”

“Why? So that your son may be neither d’Hergemont, which would have recalled past events, nor Vorski, which would have recalled the name of a traitor. Here is his birth-certificate, as François Maroux.”

She repeated, all blushing and confused:

“But why did you choose just that name?”

“It seemed easy for François. It’s the name of Stéphane, with whom François will go on living for some time. We can say that Stéphane was a relation of your husband’s; and this will explain the intimacy generally. That is my plan. It presents, believe me, no possible danger. When one is confronted by an inexplicable and painful position like yours, one must needs employ special means and resort to drastic and, I admit, very illegal measures. I did so without scruple, because I have the good fortune to dispose of resources which are not within everybody’s reach. Do you approve of what I have done?”

Véronique bent her head:

“Yes,” she said, “yes.”

He half-rose from his seat:

“Besides,” he added, “if there should be any drawbacks, the future will no doubt take upon itself the burden of removing them. It would be enough, for instance⁠—there is no indiscretion, is there, in alluding to the feelings which Stéphane entertains for François’ mother?⁠—it would be enough if, one day or another, for reasons of common sense, or reasons of gratitude, François’ mother were moved to accept the homage of those feelings. How much simpler everything will be if François already bears the name of Maroux! How much more easily the past will be abolished, both for the outside world and for François, who will no longer be able to pry into the secret of bygone events which there will be nothing to recall to memory. It seemed to me that these were rather weighty arguments. I am glad to see that you share my opinion.”

Don Luis bowed to Véronique and, without insisting any further, without appearing to notice her confusion, turned to François and explained:

“I’m at your orders now, young man. And, since you don’t want to leave anything unexplained, let’s go back to the God-Stone and the scoundrel who coveted its possession. Yes, the scoundrel,” repeated Don Luis, seeing no reason not to speak of Vorski with absolute frankness, “and the most terrible scoundrel that I have ever met with, because he believed in his mission; in short, a sick-brained man, a lunatic⁠ ⁠…”

“Well, first of all,” François observed, “what I don’t understand is that you waited all night to capture him, when he and his accomplices were sleeping under the Fairies’ Dolmen.”

“Well done, youngster,” said Don Luis, laughing, “you have put your finger on a weak point! If I had acted as you suggest, the tragedy would have been finished twelve or fifteen hours earlier. But think, would you have been released? Would the scoundrel have spoken and revealed your hiding-place? I don’t think so. To loosen his tongue I had to keep him simmering. I had to make him dizzy, to drive him mad with apprehension and anguish and to convince him by means of a mass of proofs, that he was irretrievably defeated. Otherwise he would have held his tongue and we might perhaps not have found you.⁠ ⁠… Besides, at that time, my plan was not very clear, I did not quite know how to wind up; and it was not until much later that I thought not of submitting him to violent torture⁠—I am incapable of that⁠—but of tying him to that tree on which he wanted to let your mother die. So that, in my perplexity and hesitation, I simply yielded, in the end, to the wish⁠—the rather puerile wish, I blush to confess⁠—to carry out the prophecy to the end, to see how the missionary would behave in the presence of the ancient Druid, in short to