Part 9

I confess that, for my part, this affair seemed so tangled that I scarcely believed in the possibility of a solution, and I strove to think of it no more. But Jean Daspry, on the contrary, whom I saw a great deal of at that time, grew more passionate about it with each passing day.

It was he who pointed out to me that echo of a foreign newspaper which the entire press was reproducing and commenting upon:

"In the presence of the Emperor, and in a place that shall be kept secret until the very last minute, the first trials of a submarine are to take place which is to revolutionize the future conditions of naval warfare. An indiscretion has revealed its name to us: it is called the _Seven of Hearts_."

The Seven of Hearts! Was this a chance coincidence? Or ought one to establish a link between the name of this submarine and the incidents we have spoken of? But a link of what nature? What was happening here could in no way be connected to what was happening over there.

—What do you know of it? Daspry would say to me. The most disparate effects often spring from a single cause.

The day after next, another echo reached us:

"It is claimed that the plans of the _Seven of Hearts_, the submarine whose trials are shortly to take place, were executed by French engineers. These engineers, having solicited the support of their compatriots in vain, are said to have then approached the English Admiralty, likewise without success. We give this news with all reserve."

I dare not insist too strongly upon facts of an extremely delicate nature, which provoked, as will be remembered, such considerable emotion. However, since all danger of complication is now removed, I must needs speak of the article in the _Écho de France_ which caused such a stir at the time, and which cast upon the affair of the Seven of Hearts, as it was called, a few... confused gleams of light.

Here it is, as it appeared under the signature of Salvator:

_The Affair of the Seven of Hearts. A Corner of the Veil Lifted._

"We shall be brief. Ten years ago, a young mining engineer, Louis Lacombe, desirous of devoting his time and fortune to the studies he was pursuing, gave in his resignation, and rented, at number 102 of the Boulevard Maillot, a small house which an Italian count had recently had built and decorated. Through the intermediary of two individuals, the Varin brothers of Lausanne, one of whom assisted him in his experiments as a preparator, and the other sought out backers for him, he entered into relations with H. Georges Andermatt, who had just founded the Comptoir des Métaux.

"After several interviews, he managed to interest him in a submarine project he was working on, and it was understood that, as soon as the invention was definitively perfected, M. Andermatt would use his influence to obtain from the Ministry of the Navy a series of trials.

"For two years, Louis Lacombe frequented the Andermatt hôtel assiduously and submitted to the banker the improvements he brought to his project, until the day when, satisfied with his own work, having found the definitive formula he sought, he asked M. Andermatt to begin his campaign.

"That day, Louis Lacombe dined with the Andermatts. He left in the evening, around half past eleven. Since then he has not been seen again.

"In rereading the newspapers of the period, one would see that the young man's family seized upon the courts and that the prosecutor's office grew concerned. But no certainty was arrived at, and it was generally admitted that Louis Lacombe, who was thought to be an original and capricious fellow, had set off on a journey without warning anyone.

"Let us accept this... improbable hypothesis. But a question arises, capital for our country: what has become of the submarine plans? Did Louis Lacombe take them with him? Are they destroyed?

"From the very serious inquiry to which we have devoted ourselves, it results that these plans exist. The Varin brothers have had them in their hands. How? We have not yet been able to establish this, just as we do not know why they did not try to sell them sooner. Did they fear being asked how they came into possession of them? In any case this fear did not persist, and we can affirm with complete certainty: the plans of Louis Lacombe are the property of a foreign power, and we are in a position to publish the correspondence exchanged on this subject between the Varin brothers and the representative of that power. At present the _Seven of Hearts_ imagined by Louis Lacombe is being realized by our neighbors.

"Will reality answer to the optimistic forecasts of those who were mixed up in this treason? We have, for hoping the contrary, reasons which events, we should like to believe, will not betray."

And a postscript added:

"Last minute.—We hoped with good reason. Our private information permits us to announce that the trials of the _Seven of Hearts_ have not been satisfactory. It is quite probable that from the plans delivered by the Varin brothers there was missing the final document brought by Louis Lacombe to M. Andermatt on the evening of his disappearance, a document indispensable to the total comprehension of the project, a sort of summary in which one finds the definitive conclusions, the evaluations and the measurements contained in the other papers. Without this document the plans are imperfect; just as, without the plans, the document is useless.

"Therefore it is still time to act and to recover what belongs to us. For this very difficult task, we count greatly upon the assistance of M. Andermatt. He will be eager to explain the inexplicable conduct he has maintained since the beginning. He will say not only why he did not tell what he knew at the moment of Étienne Varin's suicide, but also why he never revealed the disappearance of the papers of which he had knowledge. He will say why, for six years, he has had the Varin brothers watched by agents on his payroll.

"We expect from him, not words, but deeds. Otherwise..."

The threat was brutal. But what did it consist of? What means of intimidation did Salvator, the anonymous author of the article, possess over M. Andermatt?

A swarm of reporters assailed the banker, and a dozen interviews expressed the disdain with which he answered this summons. Whereupon, the correspondent of the _Écho de France_ retorted with these three lines:

"Whether M. Andermatt will it or no, he is from this moment our collaborator in the work we are undertaking."

* * *

The day this reply appeared, Daspry and I dined together. In the evening, with the newspapers spread upon my table, we discussed the affair and examined it from every angle with that irritation one feels at walking indefinitely in the shadows and forever bumping into the same obstacles.

And suddenly, without my servant having warned me, without the bell having sounded, the door opened and a lady entered, covered with a thick veil.

I rose at once and stepped forward. She said to me:

—Is it you, Monsieur, who lives here?

—Yes, Madame, but I confess to you...

—The gate on the boulevard was not closed, she explained.

—But the vestibule door?

She did not answer, and I thought she must have gone around by the servants' stairs. Did she then know the way?

There was a somewhat embarrassed silence. She looked at Daspry. In spite of myself, as I would have done in a salon, I introduced him. Then I begged her to sit down and to explain the purpose of her visit.

She removed her veil and I saw that she was dark-haired, of regular features, and, if not very beautiful, at least of an infinite charm, which came above all from her eyes, grave and sorrowful eyes.

She said simply:

—I am Mme Andermatt.

—Mme Andermatt! I repeated, more and more astonished.

A new silence. And she resumed in a calm voice, and with the most tranquil air:

—I have come regarding this affair... which you know. I thought that perhaps I might obtain from you some information...

—Good heavens, Madame, I know no more than what the newspapers have said of it. Pray tell me precisely in what way I may be of use to you.

—I do not know... I do not know...

Only then did I have the intuition that her calm was feigned, and that beneath this air of perfect security there lurked a great agitation. And we fell silent, as ill at ease one as the other.

But Daspry, who had not ceased observing her, approached and said to her:

—Will you permit me, Madame, to put a few questions to you?

—Oh! yes, she cried, that way I shall speak.

—You will speak... whatever those questions may be?

—Whatever they may be.

He reflected and pronounced:

—You knew Louis Lacombe?

—Yes, through my husband.

—When did you see him for the last time?

—The evening he dined at our house.

—That evening, did nothing lead you to think you would not see him again?

—No. He had indeed alluded to a journey to Russia, but so vaguely!

—You then counted on seeing him again?

—The day after, at dinner.

—And how do you explain this disappearance?

—I do not explain it.

—And M. Andermatt?

—I do not know.

—However...

—Do not question me on that.

—The article in the _Écho de France_ seems to say...

—What it seems to say is that the Varin brothers are not strangers to this disappearance.

—Is that your opinion?

—Yes.

—Upon what does your conviction rest?

—On leaving us, Louis Lacombe was carrying a satchel which contained all the papers relating to his project. Two days later, there was between my husband and one of the Varin brothers, the one who lives, an interview during which my husband acquired proof that these papers were in the hands of the two brothers.

—And he did not denounce them?

—No.

—Why?

—Because, in the satchel, there was something other than the papers of Louis Lacombe.

—What?

She hesitated, was on the point of answering, then, finally, kept silent. Daspry continued:

—So that is the reason why your husband, without warning the police, had the two brothers watched. He hoped at once to recover the papers and that compromising thing thanks to which the two brothers exercised a sort of blackmail upon him.

—Upon him... and upon me.

—Ah! upon you also?

—Upon me principally.

She articulated these three words in a muffled voice. Daspry observed her, took a few steps, and returning to her:

—You wrote to Louis Lacombe?

—Certainly... my husband was in relations...

—Apart from those official letters, did you not write to Louis Lacombe... other letters. Excuse my insistence, but it is indispensable that I know the whole truth. Did you write other letters?

All flushed, she murmured:

—Yes.

—And it is those letters the Varin brothers possessed?

—Yes.

—M. Andermatt then knows of it?

—He has not seen them, but Alfred Varin revealed their existence to him, threatening to publish them if my husband acted against them. My husband was afraid... he recoiled before the scandal.

—Only, he put everything in motion to wrest those letters from them.

—He put everything in motion... at least, I suppose so, for, from that last interview with Alfred Varin, and after the few very violent words by which he reported it to me, there has been between my husband and me no more intimacy, no more confidence. We live like two strangers.

—In that case, if you have nothing to lose, what do you fear?

—However indifferent to him I may have become, I am she whom he loved, she whom he might still have loved;—oh! that, I am certain of, she murmured in an ardent voice, he would still have loved me, if he had not seized those accursed letters...

—What! he would have succeeded... But the two brothers were nevertheless distrustful?

—Yes, and they even boasted, it seems, of having a safe hiding-place.

—Then?...

—I have every reason to believe that my husband discovered this hiding-place!

—Come now! where was it?

—Here.

I started.

—Here!

—Yes, and I had always suspected it. Louis Lacombe, very ingenious, passionate about mechanics, amused himself, in his idle hours, with making coffers and locks. The Varin brothers must have surprised this and, subsequently, used one of these hiding-places to conceal the letters... and other things also, no doubt.

—But they did not live here, I cried.

—Until your arrival, four months ago, this pavilion remained unoccupied. It is therefore probable that they returned to it, and they further thought that your presence would not hinder them on the day they needed to withdraw all their papers. But they reckoned without my husband who, in the night of the 22nd to the 23rd of June, forced the coffer, took... what he sought, and left his card to show the two brothers plainly that he had no more to fear them and that the roles were reversed. Two days later, warned by the article in the _Gil Blas_, Étienne Varin presented himself at your house in great haste, remained alone in this salon, found the coffer empty... and killed himself.

After a moment, Daspry asked:

—It is a mere supposition, is it not? M. Andermatt told you nothing?

—No.

—His attitude toward you has not changed? He has not seemed to you more gloomy, more worried?

—No.

—And you believe it would be thus if he had found the letters! To me he has not found them. To me, it is not he who entered here.

—But who then?

—The mysterious personage who conducts this affair, who holds all its threads, and who directs it toward an end we but glimpse through so many complications, the mysterious personage whose visible and all-powerful action one feels from the very first hour. It is he and his friends who entered this hôtel on the 22nd of June, it is he who discovered the hiding-place, it is he who left M. Andermatt's card, it is he who holds the correspondence and the proofs of the Varin brothers' treason.

—Who, him? I interrupted, not without impatience.

—The correspondent of the _Écho de France_, of course, that Salvator! Is it not of a blinding obviousness? Does he not give in his article details that only the man who penetrated the two brothers' secrets can know?

—In that case, stammered Mme Andermatt, with fright, he has my letters also, and it is he in turn who threatens my husband! What to do, good heavens!

—Write to him, declared Daspry plainly, confide in him without evasion; tell him all you know and all you can learn.

—What are you saying!

—Your interest is the same as his. There is no doubt he acts against the survivor of the two brothers. It is not against M. Andermatt that he seeks weapons, but against Alfred Varin. Help him.

—How?

—Does your husband have that document which completes and permits the use of Louis Lacombe's plans?

—Yes.

—Inform Salvator of it. If need be, try to procure him that document. In short, enter into correspondence with him. What do you risk?

The counsel was bold, dangerous even at first sight, but Mme Andermatt had scarcely any choice. Besides, as Daspry said, what did she risk? If the unknown was an enemy, this step did not aggravate the situation. If he was a stranger pursuing a particular end, he must attach only secondary importance to those letters.

Be that as it may, there was an idea there, and Mme Andermatt, in her dismay, was too happy to rally to it. She thanked us with effusion, and promised to keep us informed.

The day after next, indeed, she sent us this note which she had received in reply:

"The letters were not there. But I shall have them, be at ease. I watch over all. S."

I took the paper. It was the handwriting of the note that had been slipped into my bedside book, on the evening of the 22nd of June.

Daspry was therefore right, Salvator was indeed the great organizer of this affair.

* * *

In truth, we were beginning to discern a few gleams amid the darkness that surrounded us and certain points were illuminated with an unexpected light. But how many others remained obscure, like the discovery of the two sevens of hearts! For my part, I kept coming back to that, perhaps more intrigued than was needful by those two cards whose seven little pierced figures had struck my eyes in such troubling circumstances. What role did they play in the drama? What importance ought one to attribute to them? What conclusion was to be drawn from the fact that the submarine built upon Louis Lacombe's plans bore the name of _Seven of Hearts_?

Daspry, he, occupied himself little with the two cards, wholly given to the study of another problem whose solution seemed to him more urgent: he tirelessly sought the famous hiding-place.

—And who knows, he said, if I might not find there the letters that Salvator did not find... through inadvertence perhaps. It is so little credible that the Varin brothers would have removed from a place they supposed inaccessible the weapon whose inappreciable value they knew.

And he searched. The large room soon having no more secrets for him, he extended his investigations to all the other parts of the pavilion: he scrutinized the inside and the outside, he examined the stones and bricks of the walls, he lifted the slates of the roof.

One day, he arrived with a pickaxe and a shovel, gave me the shovel, kept the pickaxe and, designating the vacant ground:

—Let us go at it.

I followed him without enthusiasm. He divided the ground into several sections which he inspected successively. But, in a corner, at the angle formed by the walls of two neighboring properties, a heap of rubble and pebbles, covered with brambles and grass, attracted his attention. He attacked it.

I had to help him. For an hour, in full sunlight, we toiled uselessly. But when, beneath the parted stones, we reached the soil itself, and had gashed it open, Daspry's pickaxe laid bare some bones, a remnant of a skeleton around which still frayed scraps of clothing.

And suddenly I felt myself grow pale. I caught sight of a small iron plate driven into the earth, cut in the shape of a rectangle and on which I seemed to distinguish red stains. I bent down. It was indeed that: the plate had the dimensions of a playing card, and the red stains, a red of minium eaten away in places, were seven in number, arranged like the seven points of a seven of hearts, and pierced with a hole at each of the seven extremities.

—Listen, Daspry, I have had enough of all these stories. So much the better for you if they interest you. As for me, I am leaving you to it.

Was it the emotion? Was it the fatigue of work executed under too harsh a sun? Be that as it may, I staggered as I went off, and had to take to my bed where I remained for forty-eight hours, feverish and burning, haunted by skeletons who danced around me and flung their bloodied hearts at my head.

Daspry was faithful to me. Each day he gave me three or four hours, which he passed, it is true, in the large room, rummaging, knocking, and tapping.

—The letters are there, in this room, he would come to tell me now and then, they are there. I would put my hand in the fire on it.

—Leave me in peace, I would answer, exasperated.

On the morning of the third day, I got up still rather weak, but cured. A substantial luncheon comforted me. But a small blue letter I received toward five o'clock contributed, more than anything, to my complete recovery, so much was my curiosity, anew and despite all, sharply piqued.

The pneumatic dispatch contained these words:

"Monsieur,

"The drama whose first act took place in the night of the 22nd to the 23rd of June approaches its denouement. The very force of things requiring that I bring face to face the two principal personages of this drama and that this confrontation take place at your house, I should be infinitely grateful to you for lending me your dwelling for the evening of today. It would be well that, from nine o'clock to eleven o'clock, your servant be absent, and preferable that you yourself have the extreme kindness to leave the field free to the adversaries. You were able to observe, in the night of the 22nd to the 23rd of June, that I push to scruple the respect of all that belongs to you. For my part, I should think I wronged you if I doubted for a single instant your absolute discretion toward him who signs

"Your devoted,

"SALVATOR."

There was in this missive a tone of courteous irony, and, in the request it expressed, such a pretty fancy, that I delighted in it. It was of a charming nonchalance, and my correspondent seemed so sure of my acquiescence! For nothing in the world would I have wished to disappoint him or answer his confidence with ingratitude.

At eight o'clock, my servant, to whom I had offered a seat at the theater, had just gone out when Daspry arrived. I showed him the small blue letter.

—Well? he said to me.

—Well, I am leaving the garden gate open, so that one may enter.

—And you are going away?

—Never in my life!

—But since you are asked...

—I am asked for discretion. I shall be discreet. But I am furiously determined to see what is going to happen.

Daspry began to laugh.

—Upon my word, you are right, and I am staying too. I have an idea one will not be bored.

A ring of the bell interrupted him.

—Them already? he murmured, and twenty minutes early! Impossible.

From the vestibule, I pulled the cord that opened the gate. A woman's silhouette crossed the garden: Mme Andermatt.

She seemed distraught, and it was suffocating that she stammered:

—My husband... he is coming... he has a rendezvous... they are to give him the letters...

—How do you know? I said to her.

—A chance. A note my husband received during dinner.

—A small blue letter?

—A telephone message. The servant handed it to me by mistake. My husband took it at once, but it was too late... I had read.

—You had read...

—This, more or less: "_At nine o'clock this evening, be at the Boulevard Maillot with the documents concerning the affair. In exchange, the letters_." After dinner, I went back up to my rooms and went out.

—Without M. Andermatt's knowledge?

—Yes.

Daspry looked at me.

—What do you make of it?

—I think what you think, that M. Andermatt is one of the adversaries convened.

—By whom? and to what end?

—It is precisely what we are going to learn.

I led them into the large room.

We could just about all three fit under the mantel of the fireplace, and hide behind the velvet curtain. We installed ourselves. Mme Andermatt sat between us two. Through the slits of the drape the whole room appeared to us.

Nine o'clock struck. A few minutes later the garden gate creaked on its hinges.

I confess that I was not without experiencing a certain anguish and that a new fever excited me. I was on the point of knowing the key to the enigma! The disconcerting adventure whose episodes had been unfolding before me for weeks was at last to take its true meaning, and it was before my eyes that the battle was to be joined.

Daspry seized Mme Andermatt's hand and murmured:

—Above all, not a movement! Whatever you hear or see, remain impassive.

Someone entered. And I recognized at once, by his great resemblance to Étienne Varin, his brother Alfred. Same heavy gait, same earthy face overrun with beard.

He entered with the worried air of a man accustomed to fearing ambushes around him, who scents and avoids them. At a glance he took in the room, and I had the impression that this fireplace masked by a velvet portière was disagreeable to him. He took three steps toward us. But an idea, more imperious no doubt, diverted him, for he veered toward the wall, stopped before the old king of mosaic, with flowering beard, flaming sword, and examined him at length, mounting upon a chair, following with his finger the contour of the shoulders and face, and palpating certain parts of the image.

But abruptly he jumped from his chair and moved away from the wall. A sound of footsteps rang out. On the threshold appeared M. Andermatt.

The banker uttered a cry of surprise.

—You! You! Is it you who summoned me?

—Me? but not at all, protested Varin in a broken voice that recalled his brother's, it is your letter that brought me here.

—My letter!

—A letter signed by you, wherein you offer me...

—I did not write to you.

—You did not write to me!

“Stories of the world, in your language.”