The Three Eyes Part 31

"Which is that?"

"My father."

I said in a lower voice:

"Yon know that Theodore Ma.s.signac is dead?"

"Yes."

"Well, then?"

"I am Theodore Ma.s.signac's daughter."

I cried eagerly:

"Berangere, there is something I want to tell you; and I a.s.sure you beforehand . . ."

She interrupted me:

"_Please_ don't say anything more. There's always _that_ between us.

It is a gulf which we cannot hope to fill with words."

She seemed so much exhausted that I made a movement to leave her. She stopped me:

"No," she said, "don't go. I am not going to be ill . . . for more than a day or two, at the outside. First of all, I want everything to be quite clear between us; I want you to understand every single thing that I have done. Listen to me. . . ."

"To-morrow, Berangere."

"No, to-day," she insisted. "I feel a need to tell you at once what I have to say. Nothing will do more to restore my peace of mind. Listen to me. . . ."

She did not have to entreat me long. How could I have wearied of looking at her and listening to her? We had been through such trials when separated from each other that I was afraid, after all, of being parted from her now.

She put her arm round my neck. Her beautiful lips were quivering beneath my eyes. Seeing my gaze fixed upon them, she smiled:

"You remember, in the Yard . . . the first time. . . . From that day, I hated you . . . and adored you. . . . I was your enemy . . . and your slave. . . . Yes, all my independent and rather wild nature was up in arms at not being able to shake off a recollection which gave me so much pain . . . and so much pleasure! . . . I was mastered. I ran away from you. I kept on coming back to you . . . and I should have come back altogether, if that man--you know whom I mean--had not spoken to me one morning. . . ."

"Velmot! What did he come for? What did he want?"

"He came from my father. What he wanted, as I perceived later, was through me to enter into Noel Dorgeroux's life and rob him of the secret of his invention."

"Why did you not warn me?"

"From the first moment, Velmot asked me to be silent. Later, he commanded it."

"You ought not to have obeyed him. . . ."

"Had I committed the least indiscretion, he would have killed you. I loved you. I was afraid; and I was all the more afraid because Velmot persecuted me with a love which my hatred for him merely stimulated.

How could I doubt that his threat was seriously meant? From that time onward, I was caught in the wheels of the machine. What with one lie and another, I became his accomplice . . . or rather their accomplice, for my father joined him in the course of the winter. Oh, the torture of it! That man who loved me . . . and that contemptible father! . . .

I lived a life of horror . . . always hoping that they would grow tired because their machinations were leading to nothing."

"And what about my letters from Gren.o.ble? And my uncle's fears?"

"Yes, I know, my uncle often mentioned them to me; and, without revealing the plot to him, I myself put him on his guard. It was at my request that he sent you that report which was stolen. Only, he never antic.i.p.ated murder. Theft, yes; and, notwithstanding the watch which I maintained, I could see that I was doing no good, that my father made his way into the Lodge at night, that he had at his disposal methods of which I knew nothing. But between that and murder, a.s.sa.s.sination! No, no, a daughter cannot believe such things."

"So, on the Sunday, when Velmot came to fetch you at the Lodge while Noel Dorgeroux was out . . . ?"

"That Sunday, he told me that my father had given up his plan and wanted to say good-bye to me and that he was waiting for me by the chapel in the disused cemetery, where the two of them had been experimenting with the fragments removed from the old wall in the Yard. As it happened, Velmot had taken advantage of his call at the Lodge to steal one of the blue phials which my uncle used. I did not notice this before he had already poured part of the liquid on the improvised screen of the chapel. I was able to get hold of the phial and throw it into the well. Just then you called me. Velmot made a rush at me and carried me to his motor-car, where, after stunning me with his fist and binding me, he hid me under a rug. When I recovered from my swoon, I was in the garage at Batignolles. It was in the evening. I was able to push the car under a window which opened on the street, and I jumped out. A gentleman and a lady who were pa.s.sing picked me up, for I had sprained my ankle as I came to the ground.

They took me home with them. Next morning I read in the papers that Noel Dorgeroux had been murdered."

Berangere hid her face in her hands:

"Oh, how I suffered! Was I not responsible for his death? And I should have given myself up, if M. and Madame de Roncherolles, who were the kindest of friends to me, had not prevented me. To give myself up meant ruining my father and, as a consequence, destroying Noel Dorgeroux's secret. This last consideration decided me. I had to repair the wrong which I had unwittingly committed and to fight against those whom I had served. As soon as I was well again, I set to work. Knowing of the existence of the written instructions which Noel Dorgeroux had hidden behind the portrait of D'Alembert, I had myself driven to the Lodge on the evening before, or rather on the morning of the inauguration. My intention was to see you and tell you everything.

But it so happened that the kitchen-entrance was open and that I was able to go upstairs without attracting anybody's attention. It was then that you surprised me, in G.o.d-father's bedroom."

"But why did you run away, Berangere?"

"You had the doc.u.ments; and that was enough."

"No, you ought to have stayed and explained."

"Then you shouldn't have spoken to me of love," she replied, sadly.

"No one can love Ma.s.signac's daughter."

"And the result, my poor darling," I said, with a smile, "was that Ma.s.signac, who was in the house, of which he had a key, and who overheard our conversation, took the doc.u.ment and, through your fault, remained the sole possessor of the secret. Not to mention that you left me face to face with a formidable adversary!"

She shook her head: "You had nothing to fear from my father. Your danger came from Velmot; and him I watched."

"How?"

"I had accepted an invitation to stay at the Chateau de Pre-Bony, because I knew that my father and Velmot had lived in that neighbourhood during the past winter. Indeed, one day I recognized Velmot's car coming down the hill at Bougival. After some searching, I discovered the shed in which he kept his car. Well, on the fifteenth of May, I was watching there when he went in, accompanied by two men.

From what they said I gathered that they had carried off my father at the end of the performance, that they had taken him to an island in the river where Velmot lay in hiding and that next day Velmot was to resort to every possible method to make him speak. I did not know what to do. To denounce Velmot to the police meant supplying them with convincing evidence against my father. On the other hand, my friends the Roncherolles were not at Pre-Bony. Longing for a.s.sistance, I ran to the Blue Lion and telephoned to you making an appointment with you there."

"I kept the appointment that same night, Berangere."

"You came that night?" she asked, surprised.

"Of course I did; and at the door of the inn I was met by a small boy, sent by you, who took me to the island and to Velmot's house and to a room in which Velmot locked me up and from which, on the following day, I witnessed Theodore Ma.s.signac's torture and removal. My dear Berangere, it wasn't very clever of you!"

She seemed stupefied and said: "I sent no boy. I never left the Blue Lion and I waited for you that night and all the morning. Somebody must have given us away: I can't think who."

"It's a simple enough mystery," I said, laughing. "Velmot no doubt had a crony of some sort in the inn, who told him of your telephone-call.

Then he must have sent that boy, who was in his pay, to pick me up on my way to you."

"But why lay a trap for you and not for me?"

"Very likely he was waiting till next day to capture you. Very likely he was more afraid of me and wanted to seize the opportunity to keep me under lock and key until Ma.s.signac had spoken. Also no doubt he was obeying motives and yielding to necessities of which we shall never know and which moreover do not really matter. The fact remains, Berangere, that, next day . . ."

"Next day," she resumed, "I managed to find a boat and in the evening, to row round the island to the place where my father was dying. I was able to save him."