Maurice Level - Thirty Hours with a Corpse, and Other Tales of the Grand Guignol

She turned as she heard her husband enter. And she answered his question: “Where are you?” in a steady voice. This was the room she had intended for the final episode. There was a thick tarpaulin on the floor—which had been placed there, the servants knew, to keep the metal corners of the trunks from scratching the floor. In the dresser drawer below that in which she had put the gun, she had ropes. And she had asked for waterproof tarpaulin, waterproof, hence bloodproof.

When her husband entered, she faced him, her back to the dresser. He came toward her, stood in the center of the tarpaulin. The time had come, she must reach for the gun and shoot him. Involuntarily, her eyes swept the boudoir.

“I’m not forgetting anything?” she asked to cover her nervousness. She did not expect an answer, her trembling hand was in the open drawer, groping for the revolver.

He smiled.

“What about this?” he said, holding out the gun she sought.

“That’s right, I was forgetting that,” she stammered.

Mr. Chertier laughed loudly.

“The most important thing!”

She started. She was terrified by the change in his expression. His eyes were hard as steel, and suddenly, he appeared far from stupid, a cool, resolute man. He drew her on the tarpaulin, pressed the gun’s muzzle on her forehead, between her eyes.

He fired.

Madame Chertier slumped to the tarpaulin, which was stained with blood. The husband had stepped back calmly, to allow her to drop.

Then he gathered the corpse in the tarpaulin, took the ropes from the drawer, fastened the whole into a bundle, with unshaken, expert fingers. This done, he carried her to the trunk, dropped her inside, packed the loose linen tightly to prevent shaking. Then he opened the pocketbook, took out ticket, money, checkbook and smelling-salts, tossed the empty bag with the body. After which he slammed the lid down, locked the trunk.

The bell rang, he opend the door to the janitor and the taxi chauffeur, who carried the baggage down to the waiting cab. As he saw the big trunk swaying on the porter’s shoulders, Mr. Chertier sighed and thought:

“She had thought of everything!”

Copyright © 2016 by Dover Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Bibliographical Note

Thirty Hours with a Corpse and Other Tales of the Grand Guignol, first published by Dover Publications, Inc., in 2016, is a new anthology of thirtynine stories reprinted from standard sources. A new Introduction has been specially prepared for the present edition.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Level, Maurice, 1875–

[Short stories. English]

Thirty hours with a corpse, and other tales of the Grand Guignol / Maurice Level, introduced and edited by S. T. Joshi.

p. cm. — (Dover horror classics)

eISBN-13: 978-0-486-81099-7

1. Horror tales, French. 2. Level, Maurice, 1875– — Translations into English I. Joshi, S. T., 1958– editor. II. Title.

PQ2623.E9A2 2016

843’.912—dc23

2015031477

Manufactured in the United States by RR Donnelley

80232901 2016

H. P. Lovecraft to Myrta Alice Little (17 May 1921); Lovecraft Studies No. 26 (Spring 1992): 28–29.

The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature, ed. S. T. Joshi (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2012), p. 53.

See Mel Gordon, The Grand Guignol: Theatre of Fear and Terror (New York: Amok Press, 1988); Richard J. Hand and Michael Wilson, Grand-Guignol: The French Theatre of Horror (Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 2002). The latter volume contains new translations of Level’s Sous la lumière rouge (as In the Darkroom) and Le Baiser dans la nuit (as The Final Kiss).