Maurice Leblanc - The Secret of Sarek

He stamped across the room, striking the floor at each step and hustling the furniture. His haggard eyes roamed in all directions. He would have liked to begin his work of destruction at once, strangling some victim, giving work to his greedy fingers, executing the incoherent orders of his insane imagination.

Suddenly, he drew a revolver and, brutishly, stupidly, fired bullets into the mirrors, the pictures, the window-panes.

And, still gesticulating, still capering about, an ominous and sinister figure, he opened the door, bellowing:

"Vorski's having his revenge! Vorski's having his revenge!"

[Pg 221]

Twenty or thirty minutes elapsed. Veronique was still alone. The cords cut into her flesh; and the rails of the balcony bruised her forehead. The gag choked her. Her knees, bent in two and doubled up beneath her, carried the whole weight of her body. It was an intolerable position, an unceasing torture… Still, though she suffered, she was not very clearly aware of it. She was unconscious of her physical suffering; and she had already undergone such mental suffering that this supreme ordeal did not awaken her drowsing senses.

She hardly thought. Sometimes she said to herself that she was about to die; and she already felt the repose of the after-life, as one sometimes, amidst a storm, feels in advance the wide peace of the harbour. Hideous things were sure to happen between the present moment and the conclusion which would set her free; but her brain refused to dwell on them; and her son's fate in particular elicited only momentary thoughts, which were immediately dispersed.

At heart, as there was nothing to enlighten her as to her frame of mind, she was hoping for a miracle. Would the miracle occur in Vorski? Incapable of generosity though he was, would not the monster[Pg 222] hesitate none the less in the presence of an utterly unnecessary crime? A father does not kill his son, or at least the act must be brought about by imperative reasons; and Vorski had no such reasons to allege against a mere child whom he did not know and whom he could not hate except with an artificial hatred.

Her torpor was lulled by this hope of a miracle. All the sounds which reechoed through the house, sounds of discussions, sounds of hurrying footsteps, seemed to her to indicate not so much the preparations for the events foretold as the sign of interruptions which would ruin all Vorski's plans. Had not her dear Francois said that nothing could any longer separate them from each other and that, at the moment when everything might seem lost and even when everything would be really lost, they must keep their faith intact?

"My Francois," she repeated, "my darling Francois, you shall not die… we shall see each other again… you promised me!"

Out of doors, a blue sky, flecked with a few menacing clouds, hung outspread above the tall oaks. In front of her, beyond that same window at which her father had appeared to her, in the middle of the grass which she had crossed with Honorine on the day of her arrival, a site had been recently cleared and covered with sand, like an arena. Was it here that her son was to fight? She received the sudden intuition that it must be; and her heart contracted.

"Francois," she said, "Francois, have no fear… I shall save you… Oh, forgive me, Francois darling, forgive me!… All this is a punishment for the wrong I once did… It is the[Pg 223] atonement… The son is atoning for the mother… Forgive me, forgive me!…"

At that moment a door opened on the ground-floor and voices ascended from the doorstep. She recognized Vorski's voice among them.

"So it's understood," he said. "We shall each go our own way; you two on the left, I on the right. You'll take this kid with you, I'll take the other and we'll meet in the lists. You'll be the seconds, so to speak, of yours and I'll be the second of mine, so that all the rules will be observed."

Veronique shut her eyes, for she did not wish to see her son, who would no doubt be maltreated, led out to fight like a slave. She could hear the creaking of two sets of footsteps following the two circular paths. Vorski was laughing and speechifying.

The groups turned and advanced in opposite directions.

"Don't come any nearer," Vorski ordered. "Let the two adversaries take their places. Halt, both of you. Good. And not a word, do you hear? If either of you speaks, I shall cut him down without mercy. Are you ready? Begin!"

So the terrible thing was commencing. In accordance with Vorski's will, the duel was about to take place before the mother, the son was about to fight before her face. How could she do other than look? She opened her eyes.

She at once saw the two come to grips and hold each other off. But she did not at once understand what she saw, or at least she failed to understand its exact meaning. She saw the two boys, it was true; but which of them was Francois and which was Raynold?

[Pg 224]"Oh," she stammered, "it's horrible!… And yet… no, I must be mistaken… It's not possible…"

She was not mistaken. The two boys were dressed alike, in the same velvet knickerbockers, the same white-flannel shirts, the same leather belts. But each had his head wrapped in a red-silk scarf, with two holes for the eyes, as in a highwayman's mask.

Which was Francois? Which was Raynold?

Now she remembered Vorski's inexplicable threat. This was what he meant by the programme drawn up by himself, this was to what he alluded when he spoke of a little play of his composing. Not only was the son fighting before the mother, but she did not know which was her son.

It was an infernal refinement of cruelty; Vorski himself had said so. No agony could add to Veronique's agony.

The miracle which she had hoped for lay chiefly in herself and in the love which she bore her son. Because her son was fighting before her eyes, she felt certain that her son could not die. She would protect him against the blows and against the ruses of the foe. She would make the dagger swerve, she would ward off death from the head which she adored. She would inspire her boy with dauntless energy, with the will to attack, with indefatigable strength, with the spirit that foretells and seizes the propitious moment. But now that both of them were veiled, on which was she to exercise her good influence, for which to pray, against which to rebel?

She knew nothing. There was no clue to enlighten her. One of them was taller, slimmer and[Pg 225] lither in his movements. Was this Francois? The other was more thick-set, stronger and stouter in appearance. Was this Raynold? She could not tell. Nothing but a glimpse of a face, or even a fleeting expression, could have revealed the truth to her. But how was she to pierce the impenetrable mask?

And the fight continued, more terrible for her than if she had seen her son with his face uncovered.

"Bravo!" cried Vorski, applauding an attack.

He seemed to be following the duel like a connoisseur, with the affectation of impartiality displayed by a good judge of fighting who above all things wants the best man to win. And yet it was one of his sons that he had condemned to death.

Facing her stood the two accomplices, both of them men with brutal faces, pointed skulls and big noses with spectacles. One of them was extremely thin; the other was also thin, but with a swollen paunch like a leather bottle. These two did not applaud and remained indifferent, or perhaps even hostile, to the sight before them.

"Capital!" cried Vorski, approvingly. "Well parried! Oh, you're a couple of sturdy fellows and I'm wondering to whom to award the palm."

He pranced around the adversaries, urging them on in a hoarse voice in which Veronique, remembering certain scenes in the past, seemed to recognize the effects of drink. Nevertheless the poor thing made an effort to stretch out her bound hands towards him; and she moaned under her gag: