CHAPTER VII: THE MYSTERY OF THE BLACK WOODS
Patrice was out of bed at four o'clock in the morning. He dressed in the dark, so as not to arouse the suspicions of anyone in the neighbourhood.
To see the magistrate and then be off: that was the great thing. The rest was mere politeness. And he continued to think that his safety depended on the swiftness of his departure.
The threat of the albinos, after his imprudent pursuit of Zoé, still rang in his ears:
"We'll find him to-morrow!"
Now to-morrow was to-day!
And he tied his neck-tie inside out.
Then he wrote a line to Coriolis and Madeleine and left it on his table, where it would be seen.
An ostler was opening the yard-gate when he reached the inn. At the same moment, Michel, the driver of the Chevalet diligence, came up, went straight to his little office in the yard and turned over the pages of the register containing the names of the passengers who had booked their seats. Patrice booked one for himself, inside. It would be time enough later to show himself on the top, when they were far away. . . .
Having done this, he felt easier in his mind and asked for the magistrate. A sleepy little scrub of a chambermaid, who was still rubbing her eyes, told him that M. de Meyrentin was already in the bar-room, which had been closed to all comers since the tragedy. Patrice went there, expecting to find the examining-magistrate at breakfast, instead of which he discovered him perched on all-fours on the top of a cupboard near the door that opened on the street.
Patrice did not waste time in astonishment at this very extraordinary position for a magistrate:
"Monsieur!" he cried. "You were right! There's an accomplice!"
"I should think so, young man!" chuckled M. de Meyrentin, from the top of his cupboard. "Of course there's an accomplice! I'm following up his traces now. I told you that the murderer could only have come in through the door and that, as he could not have entered by the bottom of the door, he must have got in by the top. . . . The murderer — we'll call him the accomplice, if you like; any way, the man whom I believe to be the instrument of the Three Brothers — climbed over your heads to this cupboard, where he crouched down. . . . No wonder you couldn't make it out. . . . You see, I am continuing my enquiry upside down and what I don't find down below I discover up above. There are traces of the murderer everywhere, on the top of the furniture. There are three big pieces of furniture, two cupboards and a sideboard, on which some strange individual has literally moved about, leaping from one to the other with amazing ease and agility. . . . And now listen to me carefully. . . ."
And M. de Meyrentin, to tell his story to Patrice more comfortably, invited him to stand on a chair, while he himself sat down on the top of the cupboard, with his legs swinging to and fro.
"But it's you I'm asking to listen to me!" the young man ventured to sigh.
"Will you listen to me, or will you not?" roared M. de Meyrentin, giving two loud kicks with his impatient heels to the panels of the cupboard. "Listen, M. Saint-Aubin: you can't understand yet. . . and I dare say I look very queer to you on the top of my cupboard. . . but there's nothing queer in life: everything is natural, everything is linked up. . . . Be quiet! Don't interrupt! Listen to me! . . . I'm going to put a momentous question to you. . . do you understand? Mo — men — tous!... Listen to me carefully, M. Saint-Aubin, and then answer me: are you sure, are you quite sure. . . that the murderer, yes, the murderer. . . . Now, think! . . . Take your time! There's no hurry! . . . Are you quite sure that you heard him speak? . . ."
"Why, of course I heard him! . . ."
"Think! . . . Think! . . . Try and remember! . . . It may have been an illusion of your ears. . . . And tell me, tell me carefully: you are sure that he spoke?"
"Why, yes, yes, yes! . . ."
"Oh, what a pity! . . . What a pity! . . . What a pity! . . ."
"But what do you think? . . ."
"Nothing, since you say that he spoke!"
"You are talking in riddles, monsieur le juge," said Patrice. "And I don't understand you. But I will tell you something that's quite clear: last night, I ran after the Vautrins' sister, who was mending a sock with a whip seam that bore a striking resemblance to the pattern which you were examining on the ceiling when I came in!"
"Oh, really? Very interesting, very interesting!" said M. de Meyrentin, fixing his eye-glasses on his nose and looking down at the young man at his feet. "And why was she running away? "
"Because I tried to take the sock from her."
"Then she knew the value of it?"
"I doubt that, because she was mending it before people. . . . But the fact is that she ran away to where she lives and showed the sock to her mother, who uttered a strange sentence which I have remembered because it was repeated by the Three Brothers: ' 'Tain't yellow, it's red!' "
" ' 'Tain't yellow, it's red!' " exclaimed the magistrate, jumping down to the floor like an india-rubber ball and bounding up again under Patrice' nose. '" 'Tain't yellow, it's red!' You heard that? And at the Vautrins'? . . . You've been to the Vautrins'? . . . And they let you get away alive? . . ."
"Monsieur, I was on the roof!"
"Aha! So you approve of my system! . . . Monsieur, there's nothing like conducting one's enquiries upside down! . . . But tell me everything, tell me all you saw, heard, thought, guessed, felt, everything. . . ."
The other told him everything, in full detail. The magistrate took hurried notes. He did not interrupt Patrice once, until the young man began to talk of the job which the Three Brothers were preparing, the two hundred-thousand-franc job. Here, M. de Meyrentin could not refrain from displaying his delight and satisfaction. . . . Ah, at last! . . . They would have them! . . . They would catch the Vautrins in the act! . . . And high time too! . . . And quite easy and simple! . . . They had only to make discreet enquiries from the Montancel railway-contractors about the road by which the wages would be conveyed. . . and to lay the trap. . . . Not one of the villains would escape! . . . They'd bag them all: the Three Brothers and the accomplice . . . and the rest, if more there were. . . the whole gang of them! . . . They would purge the district, in short! M. de Meyrentin would have embraced Patrice, had his magisterial dignity not prevented him. . . .
"And what do you say the accomplice' name is?"
"Something like. . . something like Bilbao."
"Bilbao? That's a Spanish name. . . . However, we'll see. . . . But, above all, not a word, young man, not, a word to anybody! . . . Why, you're a hero! A hero on the housetop, on the Vautrins' housetop! . . . But there! Let's hope that that job is not meant to come off at once! . . . They must have time to prepare it . . . and I too! . . . You don't remember anything that could put me on the right track, I suppose?..."
"The fact of their going to see their accomplice in the forest last night proves. . . ."
"Why, of course! Of course! It must be coming off to-day. . . . It's a great pity you couldn't hear, all the conversation. . . . What we must do is to find the little man. . . you know, 'the little bloke' at Mathieu's — without a word to Mathieu himself — the little bloke who was drunk and who told everything to the other one. . . . It's unfortunate that you can't remember the name of the other one, the man to whom the little one told everything. . . ."
"Oh, but I remember now!" said Patrice, suddenly. "Hubert called him Switch. . . ."
"Switch?" said M. de Meyrentin, giving an emphatic start, while his expression grew more and, more quizzical. "That's capital. . . . Switch! . . . I congratulate you. . . . Switch! . . ."
"Do you know him? " asked Patrice.
"Ye-es, slightly," replied the magistrate, evasively.
"And now, young man, I must go; I have not a moment to lose."
"I am going too, monsieur le juge, and I have not a moment to lose either. I confess to you that, after my pursuit of Zoé, I don't care to stay in the Vautrins' neighbourhood. And, as the trains don't suit, I am taking the diligence. . . ."
"Oh, is that settled?" asked M. de Meyrentin, with a certain surprise.
"I have just booked my seat."
The magistrate seemed to be turning something over in his mind. Then:
"Very well," he said. "Good-bye, monsieur."
And he gave him his hand. But Patrice held it for a moment:
"You appeared to understand that sentence, ''Tain't yellow, it's red,' and you have not told me what it means. . . ."
"Oh, it's a private matter! Good-bye."
And he walked away, leaving Patrice to wonder whether the magistrate was not making fun of him.
Patrice called for a bowl of milk; and presently the time came when the diligence was due to start. But he perceived that it was not yet ready. It had been brought out into the yard, but the horses were not harnessed to it and it stood on three legs, or, properly speaking, three wheels: the place of the fourth was taken by a jack. And the young man learnt from the angry passengers that Michel, the driver, had discovered, at the last moment, that the fourth wheel had broken down. He had sent it to the wheelwright, who promised that it would be ready in an hour but no sooner, for it wanted three new spokes.
The driver walked across the yard. He was in a vile temper and only grunted in reply to the questions put to him by the passengers. Patrice asked him very politely if he really intended to start in an hour and received so surly and unintelligible an answer that he felt utterly cast down. His stay at Saint-Martin-des-Bois had proved unpleasant up to the very last moment. He would not forget his holiday in a hurry!
To while away the time, he tried to see M. de Meyrentin again; but Roubion told him that the magistrate had gone to wake up Mme. Godefroy, the postmistress.
The hour passed and the five disconsolate passengers grouped around the great motionless diligence were informed that the wheelwright wanted another hour to fix a piece of wood to the felloe. They thereupon decided to abandon their journey for that day.
Patrice, in spite of his reluctance to change his plans, seeing that the diligence was playing him false and more firmly decided than ever to get away, resolved to run to the station, where there was still time for him to take the train. On reaching the station, the first person he saw was Zoé, who seemed to be looking out for his arrival.
After what had happened the night before, he felt certain that she was there on his account and that, failing to see him at the manor-house, she had told her brothers, who had sent her to keep a watch on him. For aught he knew, they might at that moment be busy wrecking the line somewhere, with a view to causing his death. After all, the mystery of the former attempt had not yet been cleared up; and the most that the examining-magistrate allowed to leak out was that he had found a few footprints near the Cerdogne tunnel which were exactly like those on the ceiling in the Black Sun.
Clear-sighted as were Zoé's eyes, Patrice succeeded in eluding them and returned to the inn in an unspeakable state of collapse. Heavens, how he wished himself back in his dark and quiet little office, with its blotting-pad and its inkstand, in the Rue de l'Écu! He swore that he would never leave it again, except to get married; and even then. . . . !
An hour elapsed, during which he did not catch a glimpse of M. de Meyrentin, look for him as he might. At last, the wheel arrived and, together with the wheel, a fresh array of passengers, newly alighted from the train, who were taking advantage of the delay of the diligence to make use of this unhoped-for connection with the Chevalet district.
There were fourteen of these new passengers. Never had the yard of the Black Sun contained such a crowd. It did not occur to Patrice to feel astonished at this rush of travellers nor at their curious demeanour. And yet, for common people who had done a journey together, was it not difficult to understand that they had nothing to say to one another? There were peasants among them who wore their smocks very clumsily: for instance, they did not know where to find their pockets, as though they had forgotten where they were put. Then again, these yokels were sad-looking men, with white faces or yellow, never red and wrinkled, like the ordinary faces of the Morvan peasants.
They asked no questions of Roubion. He, on the other hand, asked questions of them, but they only gave vague answers and turned their backs on him. Roubion felt so greatly puzzled that he went and woke up Mme. Roubion, who sat down at her window, in her night-gown, with her hair in curlers, to watch the departure of those extraordinarycustomers.
Patrice, who had retired to a corner of the room, left it only to take his seat in the diligence. When about to do so, he was alarmed at the crowd that filled the inside, especially as two more passengers appeared at that moment, carrying between them a small portmanteau which seemed to be very heavy. They packed themselves and the portmanteau into the coach and, strange to say, none of the occupants protested against the introduction of that luggage into a space already so well filled.
Patrice had come down from the step. Mme. Roubion called out to him:
"Why don't you go outside, M. Patrice? . . . The weather's fine! . . ."
The young man raised his flushed face. How loudly she had bawled his name! It must have been heard all over the village. . . as far as the Vautrins', at the end of the road. . . .
He made a hasty reply, for politeness' sake, and, so as not to attract attention to himself, scrambled up to the top, which was empty, whereas the inside and the coupé [1] were crammed. And he flung himself into a corner of the tarpaulin, out of the way of the trunks which Michel, assisted by the ostler standing on a ladder, was strapping down.
The horses were put to and stood shaking their bells impatiently.
"It'll be a nice time to get there!" grumbled Michel, adding, between his teeth, "If we get there at all! . . ."
But Patrice did not hear him. He thought only of concealing himself, he wondered if he would pass unperceived when the diligence entered the forest near the, Three Brothers' cabin.
A start was made at last, amid much horn-blowing, whip-flourishing and jolting over the cobbles of the Rue Neuve, and the vehicle lumbered off at a slow trot.
Before they entered the forest, Patrice ventured to glance at the Vautrins' shanty: it was closed and there was nothing suspicious on that side; but his eyes, looking up higher, at the manor-house, saw the dainty figure of Madeleine waving her handkerchief from the little door that opened on the woods.
Patrice felt a pang at his heart: not that that organ swelled straightway with immoderate love, but rather with a sudden fear produced by this imprudent act.
"Well," he said to himself, "I don't call that at all clever of her. I should have thought that she knew better!"
However, he recovered his composure in the forest. Every yard that took him farther from Saint-Martin added a trifle to his peace of mind.
It was not to last. They had not gone much over a mile through the trees, when Michel gave an oath and pulled in his horses, one of which had suddenly shied:
"Oh, it's that Zoé!" snarled Michel through his toothless gums.
Zoé! . . . So she was everywhere. . . everywhere that he, Patrice, was! She was pursuing him. . . . Perspiring with fright, he huddled under his tarpaulin, but she most certainly saw him, for she called out:
"Ah, good-morning, M. Patrice! . . . So you are off! . . . Where are you going? . . ."
And, when the other failed to reply, she yelled a "Good-bye!" to him, accompanying the salutation with a fit of laughter that sent a cold shiver down the young man's back. Long after Zoé had disappeared from sight, pursued by a parting cut of Michel's whip, Patrice beheld her ominous little figure skipping in the white dust of the road.
"Do you think that we shall reach Saint-Barthelemy before dark?" Patrice asked the driver.
"Not before ten o'clock to-night!" replied the other, ill-temperedly, cracking his whip. "We sha'n't be at Mongeron, for lunch, till two."
The prospect of travelling part of the night through the forest was far from delightful to Patrice, who relapsed into his very gloomiest thoughts.
Michel was clearly not a talkative person. He did not even turn his head when the young man spoke to him; he seemed very busy with his horses and also with the road, which he watched carefully and constantly with his little red lidded eyes. Patrice was surprised at being alone on the roof, when there were so many inside, and imparted this reflection to Michel, who replied, drily:
"That's their business!"
Most of the passengers stepped out when the diligence began to toil up hill. Only the two travellers with the portmanteau did not stir from their corner on the back seat, near the coupe. They had put the portmanteau under the seat. Michel remained on his box and Patrice did not get down either. He felt not the least inclination to stroll along the roadside and gather wild flowers.
The journey continued thus, monotonously and with out incident; until Mongeron, where they arrived at two o'clock and where a cold lunch was served.
Patrice had thought, for a moment, of sleeping at Mongeron and resuming his journey next morning in a hired carriage, so as to avoid going through the forest at night; but he ended by preferring the risk of travelling, even at night, as one of a numerous company to that of staying in that lonely inn right in the middle of the woods. Nothing happened during lunch. When the diligence started, the passengers took the same seats as in the morning. They were chattier now and, when climbing the hills, began to talk to one another like old friends. They even looked as though they were exchanging confidences around the diligence, which they were careful to keep in sight.
Patrice more than ever regretted the fatal notion that had made him hit upon this way of escaping from Saint-Martin. The high-road, since he had seen Zoé, now appeared to him the most dangerous of all, especially since it was beginning to grow dark. They had long ago come to the tall, thick trees which gave this southern forest its gloomy name of the Black Woods. The daylight made its way with difficulty through the dense foliage. And, under the great trees, what a silence! The crack of Michel's whip alone from time to time awakened the echoes of that wilderness.
However, Michel was no longer so silent as in the morning. The Mongeron innkeeper had given him of his best and filled his drinking-can with good white wine. Patrice heard him talking to himself at intervals, with many a knowing head-shake. He seemed to have resigned himself to something known to himself alone and kept on saying:
"Go ahead! . . . Go ahead! . . ."
It might be six o'clock in the evening when they arrived at the Côte du Loup, so-called because the hill is overhung by a rock which, with a slight stretch of the imagination, almost resembles the shape of a wolf. The coach was once more emptied of its passengers; and Michel, dozing on his box, was letting the reins drag on the horses' cruppers, when he was suddenly roused from his slumbers by a voice that shouted to him from the road:
"Don't go to sleep, Switch!"
Patrice's own eyes were suddenly opened! . . .Switch! . . . Who had shouted, "Switch?" . . . And whom was it meant for? . . . He bent over the road and saw standing by the horses a man who, until then, had stayed inside the coach on all the hills, one of the two who had hustled him on the step, in the morning, as they were lifting in the small, heavy portmanteau. He was a little wizened chap, with a cap on his head, and his appearance corresponded pretty closely with the description which Hubert Vautrin had given when telling his brothers about "Switch and the little bloke."
The little wizened chap had his nose in the air and was looking up, half-jestingly, at the driver, who playfully gave him one with his whip between the legs.
Patrice moved his eyes from the road to the box of the diligence:
"What!" he said, with an agitation which he did not strive to conceal. "Are you Switch?"
Michel did not reply.
"Excuse me, monsieur," Patrice insisted, "but are you Switch?"
"What's that to do with you? My name's Michel Pottevin, but they can me Switch, in these parts, for fun. It's a nickname like, which Mother Vautrin gave me, as a lark, in the old days. We used to dance together, at Saint-Martin Fair, before she lost the use of her legs. She's no good at that now. Seems that, in her jargon, 'Switch' stands for 'the driver.' Perhaps it means that because of my whip: true enough, I always look as if I had a switch in my hand, same as a man who goes fishing. Is that all you want to know? Are you satisfied?"
Patrice was unable to reply at once. The wizened little fellow in the cap had scrambled up beside Michel and was whispering in his ear. The other shrugged his shoulders. The little chap got down again and Switch said:
"Well and good, if it suits you. I'm not keen on it, myself!".
A strange gleam suddenly lit up the situation in Patrice' bewildered brain. Was there ever such luck as his? Here was he taking the diligence to escape adventures and finding himself let in for one of the most dangerous affairs imaginable since the attack on the Lyons mail: a coach-robbery! How was it that he had seen nothing, guessed nothing since the morning? His brain must be full of past events, not to have noticed what was being plotted around him! Oh, he was sure of it now! The two-hundred-thousand-franc job" was to come off presently, at once, perhaps! . . . Yes, yes, it was quite simple, too simple!. . . The heavy little portmanteau contained the cash to pay the workmen; and it did not take much to guess the kind of cashiers that all those passengers were! . . . He understood it all: the two and a half hours' delay of the diligence; M. de Meyrentin's persistency in remaining with Mme. Godefroy, the postmistress, whom he had gone to pull out of bed, immediately after his conversation with Patrice! . . . Ah, the magistrate had taken all the time he wanted, after contriving the trick of the wheel, to arrange for the protection of the two hundred thousand francs! . . . It was he who had sent to the prefecture, by special train, for all these sham peasants, with the aid of whom he hoped to lay hold of the Vautrin gang, the whole gang, the Three Brothers and the mysterious accomplice! . . .
Patrice's only hope now was that the plan might prove too simple. He thought that the Three must already be warned and that it was not for nothing that Zoé had kept watch at the station and in the forest. They would never dare risk it. And Patrice was now crossing the Black Woods guarded by a whole regiment of detectives. . . .
The poor lad tried to screw up his courage with these arguments, for he was utterly down-hearted. The last discovery had done for him. And, above all, he was angry with M. de Meyrentin for not warning him.
It grew darker and darker. It was not yet night, but the dank dusk that fell from the arch of gloomy verdure under which the coach was now driving was more impressive than night itself, for the darkness did not seem natural, but rather contrived with sinister intentions by the evil genii of the forest.
"Don't be silly, get back inside!" said Michel to the little wizened man, who was trotting along, cracking his jokes, under the horses' noses. "I don't like the Côte du Loup! . . ."
At these words, the passengers on the road manoeuvred so as to keep closer around the diligence, gradually, without any apparent order. It was easy fat Patrice to see that the approaches to the carriage were well guarded. Those gentry were ready for all eventualities, with their hands in their pockets or under their smocks, doubtless concealing their weapons.
"Mr. Switch," said Patrice, creeping nearer to the driver, "it was I who spoke to M. de Meyrentin, the magistrate, this morning!"
This time, the other turned right round on his seat: "Ah, it was you who discovered the job got up by the Three Brothers, was it? Well, you've done a pretty thing, my boy, you have! " said Switch, lighting his pipe. " I can't congratulate you."
"What makes you say that?" asked Patrice, taken aback.
"Why, you must be fond of whacks to mix yourself up with such things! . . . Well, there, you're a plucky one! . . . I don't care, after all. . . . I'm all right with them; they won't hurt me . . . and I sha'n't do anything to make them, you take my word. . . . . But, as for you, my lad, since you've chosen to prate, you'd be better off if you were safe at home!"
"Then I oughtn't to have said anything?" asked the young man, not knowing which of his saints to invoke and mechanically wiping the perspiration from his forehead.
"You'd have done wiser not to," said the other.
"Not as far as you're concerned, at any rate! If I'd said nothing, you would have been much more certain to be attacked and there would have been no one to protect you!"
"It's not me," replied Michel, logically enough, "it's not me they'd have attacked: it's the cash-box of those contractor-chaps; and a fat lot I care for the cash-box of those contractor-chaps! . . . There may be a million inside, for all I know! . . . It's not for me, is it? . . . The others would have taken it away quietly; and I should have gone my road, that's all, see? . . . Now, let's understand each other. . . . I know nothing: it's you who know all about it. . . . The judge says to me, the Vautrins are going to do so-and-so! . . . I, I don't say no, I say nothing! . . . It's the first time they've been informed against. . . and it's you who've had the cheek to do it! . . . Well, my lad, I hope it may bring you luck! . . ."
All these words of Michel's, while giving Patrice a sense of the magnitude of his courage and the immensity of his imprudence, filled him with the greatest confusion.
He felt a fool and bitterly regretted interfering in this matter of the two hundred thousand francs which might turn out so badly for him.
"But, when all is said," he sighed, "you surely don't believe that the Three Brothers will dare to attack us, protected as we are!"
"I don't say that they will," the driver retorted, obstinately, "but I don't see why they shouldn't, if they want to!"
"Do you think they won't realize that all this pack of sham peasants are only coming with us to protect the cash?"
"Oh, if it's they who are to do the job, you may be sure they know all about it by now! . . . They must have watched us from more than one corner of the road!. . ."
"Can they follow us as easily as all that?"
"Oh, they're as quick as quick can be! . . . There's not a quicker animal in the forest, that's sure. . . . They'll have seen us from in front, from behind and from both sides; and they have cross-roads which take them all round is without our suspecting it for a minute! . . . Yes, my gentleman, you might almost say it was they that made the forest and not Providence!"
"I've heard a lot about what they do in the forest. . . ."
"And about what they don't do, I expect! . . . I wasn't born yesterday — you're so something more of a chicken — and it's longer ago than yesterday since people began to speak of the Mystery of the Black Woods!"
"What's the Mystery of the Black Woods?"
"You'd better ask the people who sometimes travelfrom the Chevalet country to the Cerdogne country. They may answer . . . but there's not one who'll ever complain, you bet your boots!"
"Is it truee what they tell about travellers being stopped by a gang of masked highwaymen?"
"Oh, that's very old, very old! . . . That's a worn-out trick, the trick of the black masks. . . . Nowadays, when people travel by diligence, they feel almost comfortable . . . provided they behave properly to the Wolf Stone."
"What do you mean by behaving properly to the Wolf Stone?"
"Have you a five-franc piece about you?"
"What for?"
"Give it to me!" said the other, taking the coin which Patrice produced from his pocket.
And he threw it to the little wizened man, who stood in the midst of the group, cap in hand. The little man picked up the five-franc piece, without asking for explanations, and climbed the bank a few steps away. This bank was surmounted by the enormous Wolf Stone which was seen so clearly from the bottom of the hill. He hung on to the slope and emptied the contents of his cap into a hollow in the stone, which emitted a silvery sound. Then he threw the five-franc piece in and scrambled down again.
Patrice watched this performance without understanding a bit of it. His eyes wandered from the Wolf Stone to the passengers and the driver. Michel chuckled with delight at seeing his mystification:
"What you have just seen, young gentlemen, is the wolf's pence" — "Click, clack!" with the whip-" that's it: the wolf's pence" — and he gave another "Click, clack!" for the wolf's pence. — "Catch the idea? You don't? Well, when a traveller has paid his wolf's pence, he can feel more or less comfortable between Cerdogne and Chevalet, young gentleman! . . . Now that you have given your five francs, I could tell you to set your mind at rest, if this was an ordinary day. But to-day it's another pair of shoes: there's the matter of that wages chest downstairs, young gentleman!"
"Then is that the Mystery of the Black Woods?"
"Part of it. . . ."
"So they'll come presently and fetch the wolf's pence? The men below have paid so as not to rouse the Vautrins' suspicions, I suppose?" added Patrice, knowingly.
"No names, please: they don't like that! . . . They come and fetch the wolf's pence when they feel inclined. Sometimes, the pence remain in their hollow stone for a fortnight at a time. . . and nobody dares touch the money. Travellers go and look at it sometimes out of curiosity, on their way out and back again, before adding their own contribution. . . . Oh, they've seen funny things, believe me, things which can't be explained and which prove that the forest does whatever those beggars want it to!"
"For instance?" asked Patrice, looking forward more confidently to the end of the journey, for, the more he saw of his fellow-passengers, the more he felt persuaded that they knew what they were about: he had watched them for some time moving among the bushes that lined the road, with an easy daring that reassured him where he sat, on the roof.
Old Switch stood up on his box, blinked his eyes and looked at something in the distance behind him. Then he sat down again and said:
"There, I expect it'll be all right, to-day! . . . I'm just as pleased, you know! . . . Well, what are you staring at me like that for? Perhaps you'd like me to tell you the story of Barrois' trunk? . . ."
"Barrois' trunk!" thought Patrice. "Why, that's what Zoé was talking about!" And he said, aloud, If you do, I sha'n't regret my five francs."
For Patrice, without being stingy — far from it — had a thrifty mind.
"The story's well known in the Chevalet country," said the other, nodding his head, "and in Cerdogne too, believe me; but the people are shy with strangers; and the story of Barrois' trunk is one which they tell among themselves, like all the stories of the Mystery of the Black Woods, which might put things into the heads of the police, see? . . . And there's no need of police. Who could do their work in the forest better than those who look after the wolf's pence? But they've got to be paid, that's only fair. . . . Well, it's because of somebody who not only refused to pay, but stiared to steal the wolf's pence, that the trouble with Barrois' trunk came about! . . . Yes, young gentleman."
"But is it a real story, which really happened?"
"It happened just behind me, where you're sitting, young man. . . on the exact spot! . . . Well, there, you've heard speak of Blondel, the man who was murdered the other day at Roubion's?"
Had Patrice heard speak of Blonde! . . . He gave his name; and the driver knew his connection with the tragic adventure of the unfortunate commercial traveller.
"Well, this Blondel who was murdered — I don't know by whom: it's none of my business — had a friend on the road, like himself, who thought himself very clever and made fun of him because Blondel had told him that, each time the Chevalet people passed the Wolf Stone, they paid their wolf's pence, to bring them luck. Blondel himself gave his half a franc like the others, when he took the Chevalet diligence, and made no secret of it either. . . . I must tell you that, at that time, he hadn't had any political troubles with the Three Brothers: between you and me, politics are enough to make the best of friends quarrel, aren't they? . . . Well, Blondel's friend, a certain Barrois, Désiré Barrois, started betting that he'd go past the Wolf Stone and never give his half a franc and that nothing would ever happen to him. Now this Barrois had just taken on the business of a firm at Cluse for the whole of the country-side. It was very rash of him to behave as he did, for he would often be wanting the diligence. And here's what happened to him, true as you're sitting there, my dear sir! — Now then, Nestor, keep quiet, can't you? Did you ever see such a brute? Look at him! Look at him putting back his ears! You know I won't have it; Click, clack! — The first time Barrois went past the Wolf Stone — it was on the way back from Saint-Barthelemy; they were coming down the hill and the diligence had stopped for the passengers to go and put in their pence — Barrois, seeing this, bellowed like a bull: it was a disgrace, he was in a hurry, coaches had no business to stop when going down hill and so on and so on! But he wasted his breath: the others had sent round the hat and emptied the collection in the hollow stone up there. . . . Then Barrois climbs up to the stone and sees the treasure. There was quite twenty-five or thirty francs, which proved that the wolf hadn't passed for quite three days. Barrois picks it all up and puts the cash in his pocket: 'That'll cure you,' says he. 'Each time I come this way, I'll do the same. When you know that it's I who take it, you won't put any more in. So you've something to thank me for.' The others grumbled, but, as they had done their duty, as far as they were concerned, they washed their hands of it, see? . . . Next day, Barrois, who had put up at the Black Sun, received a note, signed 'The Wolf of the Black Woods,' saying that if he didn't put into the wolf's hollow as many pieces of gold as he had taken out coins of all sorts, he'd smart for it! ' . . . Barrois was obstinate and put in nothing; but, a little later, here's what happened, on my word of honour: going to Mongeron, on business, he opened his trunk of samples to show his goods to the innkeeper, a big trunk which had made the journey here, where you're sitting, sir. . . . Well, the trunk, which was full when he put it on board, in front of all of us, at Saint-Barthelemy, was empty, oh, absolutely empty, not so much as a watch-chain left — I forgot to tell you that he travelled in watches and jewellery — and there may have been thirty thousand francs' worth when he started! What do you say to that? . . . Barrois went clean off his head, for it was a mystery, a real mystery of the Black Woods. . . and something more than an ordinary trick of the wolf! . . . 'When Blondel heard this at the Black Sun, he began to chaff Barrois and said, Well, what did I tell you? Now, there's nothing for it but to put your pieces of gold, as the wolf said, into the stones and put back your empty trunk on the top of the diligence: then perhaps it'll be full again. There's mercy for the repentant sinner!'. . . No sooner said than done. Next day, Barrois takes the diligence to go back to Saint-Barthelemy and puts his trunk there, where you are, and then sits down beside me. Then, when we're near the Wolf Stone, he scrambles down and goes and leaves his gold pieces: three hundred and sixty francs in ten-franc pieces — the wolf didn't say in his note that they must be twenty-franc pieces — after which he gets up beside me again; and, on seaching Saint-Barthelemy, we take down the trunk! . . . Oh, the excitement! . . . It was so heavy, there was no moving it; in fact, it was too heavy for jewellery. . . . He opens it: what do you think's inside? Stones!... The stones they break on the roads! . . . We've seen the heap from which the wolf took the stones to fill the trunk. . . . What do you think of that for a mystery? How did the wolf know when the time had come? No one ever knew; and that's what they call the story of Barrois' trunk. . . . And believe me, ever since that day, everyone has paid his wolf's pence and never touched the money in the hollow of the Wolf Stone. . . . Barrois' gold coins even stayed there for more than three months, yes, sir, as an example to everybody. . . and then the wolf took them, like the rest. . . and then Barrois, who had taken to his bed, died. . . . There's the story of Barrois' trunk, as I saw it happen with my own eyes, sure as I'm called Switch! And, if you ask me, I should say the wolf has watches enough to tell him the time from now till doomsday!"
Patrice thought to himself:
"For all that, they stole the magistrate's watch as well! . . ."
The driver would have liked to sit and enjoy the effect produced by his story, but his horses were taking up a lot of his attention, though they were going at a foot's pace and he was not worrying them and they knew the hill. Nestor was particularly restive; and Michel flicked him over the ears with his whip.
Patrice was still pensive:
"Do you usually get down, when you're going up hill?"
"Yes, certainly."
"You and the outside passengers?"
"Nearly always."
"And, those two times, when that happened with the trunk, did you all get down, on the hills?"
"Yes, I'm sure we did, for, the second time, we chaffed Barrois when we saw that his trunk was still in its place. But, though we got down, we never lost sight of the coach and the women remained inside. Well, nobody saw anything."
"Very well," said Patrice, after turning the matter over in his mind, "very well, the trunk was taken from the top during the journey and put back without you noticing it, while you were climbing the hills. How could that have happened? There's only one thing I can think of, which is that, in certain parts of the forest, where the trees form an arch over the diligence, somebody bent down from the top of that arch and took the trunk and put it back again a little farther on: there's your whole miracle for you! But it would take a very clever, very strong and very active person and one who knew every inch of the forest. . . ."
"Oh, as for that, sir, the wolf of whom I speak has all those qualities!"
"Mr. Switch, have you ever heard in the forest of a certain Bilbao?" asked Patrice, who, for some moments, had been thinking of the queer name mentioned by Zoé at the Vautrins', a name which he could not remember exactly.
"Bilbao? . . . Wait a bit! . . . Never. . . no, never. . . . Bilbao? . . . Wait! . . . No, but sometimes one hears a call in the forest at dusk, near the Pierrefeu clearing — yes, I've heard a call something like this: Baoo! . . . Baaoo! . . . Perhaps it was Bilbao."
"And you've never seen him!" asked Patrice.
"I don't even know if he's flesh or fish!" replied Switch.
"Well, it may have been he who played the trick with Barrois' trunk," said Patrice.
"And it's he the Three Brothers are relying on to lift the contractors' money-chest! It's a good thing, for them that they've put it inside and that it's guarded by fifteen detectives: Bilbao will have had his trouble for nothing."
Michel looked at Patrice as though all this was Greek to him:
"But who is this Bilbao?" he asked.
"He's the accomplice of the Three Brothers!"
The driver chuckled:
"They're quite smart enough to have invented that accomplice!" he said.
Patrice was struck by these words and by the tone of conviction in which they were uttered. It was not the first time that he heard this opinion expressed. As far as he could make out, the peasantry, from Saint-Martin to the Chevalet country, were all persuaded that the Three Brothers could do without accomplices of any sort.
Suddenly, the driver flung himself back, holding in his horses, which seemed ready to run away and were neighing madly:
"Oh, oh! " said Michel, in a low voice. "Look out! They're not far off now!"
"Hpw do you know?" asked Patrice, beginning to shake with fear.
"Look at my horses," said Switch. "I can't hold them. They always behave like that when the others are near: my horses sniff as if they smelt a wild animal! . . ."
Patrice, greatly alarmed by what Switch was saying, leant over the side of the coach to see what was happening on the road. The detectives, surprised at the disorderly conduct of the team, had run up beside the carriage. They too seemed impressed, as though they realized that the decisive moment was at hand and the attack about to be delivered. Perhaps they had seen or heard something. They exchanged swift words, in a low voice. Brief orders were given.
Other figures sprang up in the twilight, in front of a bush, and gave a faint whistle, to which the people of the diligence replied. Patrice thought they were a reinforcement from the Chevalet district who must have watched the roads throughout the day.
This fresh little band arrived without hurrying, like peasants returning home, though there was no such thing as a cottage within five or six miles.
Patrice' idea must have been correct, for, on coming up to the diligence, all these people mingled, in the dark. And the horses once again snorted and Switch found such difficulty in holding them that a voice from the road asked him what was the matter with the brutes to make them so very restive.
Michel did not reply.
At a given moment, Nestor reared and neighed and the two other horses [2] neighed in concert and gave every sign of the most intense terror. They swerved to one side and the diligence drew almost right across the road. Patrice, holding on to the hand-rail, peered at everything around, as well as the falling darkness would permit.
He was overcome with a terrible sense of fear when he saw the confusion that reigned below. A group of detectives, acting on the order of one of their number, were preparing to re-enter the conveyance; the little wizened man in the cap had put out his hand to seize the bridle of Nestor, who was neighing more and more intractably, when suddenly, with an incredible wild fury, the whole team darted forward, bounding, flying along the road amid shouts and cries of despair.
The horses carried the great jolting body of the diligence at full speed, as though it weighed no more than a feather, far, far from the detectives, who panted after it in vain and soon lost sight of it. . . .
Patrice thought that his last hour had come. He had the greatest difficulty in keeping his seat on the top of the coach. Clutching the iron rail, he turned to Michel.
He saw the back of the driver sitting so still and straight and calm on his box that Patrice could not understand it, could not understand it. Michel was driving his horses on a light rein, not with the ludicrous effort of a coachman trying to master his animals and failing, but with the stately pride of a victorious competitor in an ancient chariot-race. What did it mean? What did it mean? Had Michel lost his head? And Patrice shouted:
"Michel! . . . Michel! . . ."
The driver turned round. It was not Michel!
And, in fact, it was hard to tell who it was, for he wore a black mask on his face. This was the crowning terror. Incapable even of yelling out in fright, Patrice, jolted to and fro by the demon chariot, fell upon his knees.
"Don't move, Patrice!" said the black mask, in the voice of Blondel's murderer.
Patrice was bereft of the strength to make the slightest movement save those enforced upon him by the alarming bounds of the diligence. A jerk more powerful than the rest sent him rolling to the feet of that hell's own coachman, who now was standing straight up above the runaway team. The driver must have hands of iron to make animals mad with terror keep the road at such a pace.
What hands! . . . The hands that had strangled Blondel before he had time to utter a cry! . . . And Patrice could see that that devil of a driver used only one hand, only one, to his three horses. . . where as the other. . . the other hand descended. . . descended slowly — while the driver calmly resumed his seat — descended slowly — ah, it was the same long arm at the end of which appeared the dazzling white cuff, the cuff that made that arm appear so much longer, through the little serving-hatch of the bar-room — slowly but surely the hand descended to Patrice' throat, even as he had seen it descend to Blondel's throat through the little aperture of the serving-hatch. . . .
And Patrice felt a grip of iron clutch his throat. . . .
And he gurgled. . . and his eyes almost burst from his head, from his head which was now raised to the level of the head with the black mask. . . . O hideous, O hideous death-agony, during which he still had just time to shrink before the fiery glance of hatred that gleamed through the eye-holes of the black mask. . . .
And he heard, he could just hear, he heard a voice from under the black mask — the same voice that had murdered Blondel — ask:
"Shall you go back to the man's house?"
And, as the grip round his throat was slightly released, Patrice was just able to gasp out a single word:
"Never!"
But this word which he gasped out to the man in the black mask was marked with such an accent of sincerity that it saved Patrice's life. The terrible driver ceased strangling him — there was just time and the eyes veiled their terrible glitter. It even seemed to Patrice, for so far as one can realize such a thing at such a moment, that the terrible driver was chuckling, under his mask.
In any case, what Patrice did see was that the demon driver took off his cap to him, very politely, and put it on again at once.
Then, as the diligence slackened its pace, for the horses were out of breath, and skirted the tall forest trees, the man in the mask grasped a branch, hooked himself onto it as though by magic, swung his heels, turned an astounding somersault and disappeared in the dark leafage above.