“It was when I went back to her mother’s place that I began to feel slightly uneasy, sir,” said Austin. “I’d already looked in there to warn her of the danger and ask her to assemble all the equipment hidden in the house so that I could take it away. She had listened to my brief account of what had happened without showing the slightest surprise and without making a single remark. I went off to make some telephone calls and collect my car. When I got back I found the house empty.
“Yet I had told her to be sure to wait for me. I went through into the back parlor. She hadn’t done a thing I had asked. She must have gone out immediately after I left. It was then I felt there was something strange afoot.
“I wanted to dash back to the villa at once, but I had some trouble with the car. Those damn charcoal-gas engines . .
Austin was telling Dr. Fog about the end of his mission. His departure from France having been delayed because of bad weather, some time had elapsed since the events he was describing had occurred; but from the vehemence in his voice it was clear they had left a vivid impression on him and he was not likely to forget them for some time to come. Dr. Fog listened in silence. In the course of an unusually varied career he had come across any number of weird characters and strange situations. Eccentricity was his specialty, and, as he sometimes went so far as to admit, he felt a secret admiration for it. He was interested in the final episode of the Arvers affair but saw no reason for getting unduly worked up about it. His lack of emotion, which seemed almost tantamount to incomprehension, irritated Austin, whose feelings were roused all over again as he described each stage of the drama. He was stumbling over himself to evoke the atmosphere of that morning for the benefit of his chief, and from time to time digressed into trivial details that, at the time, had seemed of vital importance.
“The engine had conked out! Those damn contraptions they use in France these days, sir! And like a fool I wasted at least a quarter of an hour trying to get started again. Otherwise I might have reached there in time. It was only when I realized I could do nothing about it that I thought of setting off on foot. You understand, sir?”
“I understand,” Dr. Fog replied in an encouraging tone. “So you set off on foot?”
“It wasn’t very far. Twenty minutes’ walk—not even that in my case, as I started to run as soon as I was outside the village. I was getting more and more apprehensive. . . . A sort of intuition, as I said, and the feeling grew stronger as I went along. It was the old woman’s attitude I could not get out of my mind: that placidity of hers, that indifference, that apparent lack of all emotion . . . Yet anything to do with him must have concerned her at least as deeply as it did her daughter.”
“Some people have a special gift for hiding their feelings,” Dr. Fog observed sententiously.
“Generally speaking, it’s a sign of character.”
“As soon as the villa came in sight above the trees, there was something about it that alarmed me—yes, that’s the only word for it: alarmed me—something incongruous. A mere detail, insignificant in itself, but why did it have such an effect on me? I can’t explain, but I was all on edge. It was the thick smoke rising from the chimney. The fire must have been rekindled, otherwise it would have gone out. There were dozens of reasons to account for this. They might have been burning some papers or other incriminating documen
ts; and yet at the sight of it I was filled with foreboding. I had slackened my pace because I was out of breath; now I broke into a run again. What for, I wonder?”
“As you say, what for?” Dr. Fog said softly.
“I burst into the garden. The two women were there, Claire and her mother, sitting on the doorstep, their heads propped on their hands. Claire moved slightly as I approached. I was going to question her but I found I couldn’t; the sight of her face chilled me to the bone. Unrecognizable, impossible to describe, sir. Never have I seen such an expression of horror engraved on a human
face.
“I stopped dead in my tracks, unable to move, then took a step toward her. It was then I noticed the smell and was paralyzed all over again. I forgot to tell you that the front door and the door of the living room were both wide open. That’s where the smell was coming from. There was no wind, not the slightest puff. Sir, if hell really exists, it couldn’t give off a more poisonous stench than the one I smelled when I reached that house.”
When he saw the girl’s mother standing before him, Arvers realized his triumph was not complete and that he would have to face one last ordeal. This did not surprise him. He had known for a long time that he would have to contend with the old woman someday. Her appearance at the scene seemed strangely familiar to him. Her menacing attitude did not impress him in the least—this was just how he had imagined it would be.
“Put your hands behind your back,” she said.
He obeyed quietly, but not because of fear. He questioned himself objectively on this score and discovered with delight that this emotion had become alien to him.
He did not move when Claire tied his wrists together. He only had to bide his time and wait for the proper moment to play his part in the scenario that the two women had evidently worked out in detail long before, in case all other means of attaining their aim should fail. They did not exchange a word, yet Claire needed no prompting. Her mother had thrown her a length of rope. She had thought of every detail, but she hadn’t. . . He inwardly
rejoiced at the thought that she hadn’t, that she couldn’t have, foreseen everything.
When his hands were firmly bound, the old woman at last broke the silence.
“Make him lie down on the sofa/’ she said to her daughter.
Arvers started to carry out this order even before Claire had time to act on it. As he approached the sofa she gave him a shove that knocked him off his feet and then began tying up his ankles, his legs, and the rest of his body. Stretched out on his back, his head resting on a cushion, he fixed his eyes on the old woman, who was now crouching by the fireplace.
“Untie one of his hands.”
She directed the whole scene like an experienced producer, not forgetting the major role she had selected for herself. She was busy stoking up the fire. She piled the logs together, threw on some new ones, and fanned the embers into life. In a short while the flames began licking up the chimney. Meanwhile Claire had unbound Arvers’ wrists. Then she carefully tied his left arm to the
frame of the sofa, leaving the other one free.
He let her deal with him like a child, without taking his eyes off the old woman. One would have thought she was performing some household duty, but he had no illusions as to her intentions.
“Take his shoes off.”
He did not even shudder. He knew the ordeal that awaited him. He had spent night after night contemplating it in his dreams, preparing for it, analyzing each of its successive stages, patiently eliminating any unforeseen aspect of it. Fortified by this extensive research, his mind had performed the miracle of transforming it into a compulsory formality and depriving it of all its horror.
The old woman gave the fire a final push; then, leaving the poker embedded in the embers, she turned and came toward him.