Читать книгу C. N. Williamson & A. N. Williamson: 30+ Murder Mysteries & Adventure Novels (Illustrated) - Charles Norris Williamson - Страница 87

Table of Contents

"The man is without a name," said the Commandant. "He is a number. But once he was known as Jean Fourneau."

Virginia breathed again. "And the one who was with him?"

"The man eaten by the sharks? He was called, in the world, Pierre Duval."

The girl could hardly restrain a murmur of the infinite relief she felt. But she dared show no emotion. "I suppose you have all sorts and conditions of men here?" she asked.

"From the highest to the lowest."

"Then there must be many interesting cases—quite romances. Do tell us something about a few of the best."

"That is difficult. There are many cases which might interest you; but they would shock you as well."

"I would trust you to choose. Have you any young men of good family who, perhaps, committed their crimes for love?"

The Commandant smiled. "We have many such. There is the man who is called the New Caledonian Dreyfus—Chatelain—who sold his country to please the woman he loved. He is at Ducos. But perhaps the most notable example of the type you desire is a young scion of French and English aristocracy whom we have here, on the Ile Nou. He is now known as Number 1280; but a few years ago he figured brilliantly in the great world as Maxime Dalahaide. You may have heard of him, mademoiselle."

The words rang strangely in the girl's ears. She "might have heard of him"! But her presence of mind had not left her, as a few moments ago she had feared it might, when it should be needed most.

She was simply carrying out her part of the programme, and she knew that Roger and George were watching her from behind half-closed lids. If they could help her they would; but the time had not come for their help yet.

"I left America only a year ago," she answered, "and one forgets things of this sort when they happen very far away."

"Naturally. But it was an uncommon case. Maxime Dalahaide was condemned to death for murdering a beautiful young actress, with whom he was in love—jealousy alleged as the cause. However, powerful influence saved him from death and sent him to us. I do not know that he was properly thankful."

Virginia showed a little decorous interest, such as a stranger might legitimately take in the hero of such a tale. "This story ought to make a splendid anecdote for our book," she exclaimed. "Is the man handsome?"

"You might not think so if you saw him now. The costume of the forçat is not becoming. But he is still quite young, between twenty-eight and nine. You can see his portrait if you like, mademoiselle, at the Bureau of Anthropometry, where each convict's photograph is taken, with every possible view of his face, when he first becomes an inmate of the prison."

"I would rather see the man himself," answered Virginia. "If you would only let my brother and me have an interview with him; think how it would help our book! Ah, monsieur, that would be kind. I should never forget your goodness in giving me such a chance."

The gallant Commandant hesitated. But—the permit in the possession of these three favoured visitors was very explicit. They were to have privileges scarcely ever granted before, and he had therefore the best of excuses for obliging the beautiful American girl.

"Do say yes!" persuasively added Virginia.

"I really think I may conscientiously do so," replied the old Frenchman, delighted to please the most radiant being he had seen for many a long year. "Number 1280 has acted for some time as secretary in one of the bureaux; but another convict, displaced for Dalahaide because of carelessness and inaccuracy, was jealous of the favour shown the aristocrat (ah, I assure you they know all about each other's affairs and circumstances here!), contrived to make a rough knife out of a piece of flint, and stabbed his rival in the back, narrowly missing the lungs. As it was, the wound was a serious one, and Dalahaide is in the hospital. The would-be murderer is now undergoing punishment in what we call the Black Cell."

"The wound was not actually dangerous?" Roger hastened to inquire, seeing that Virginia's lips were white.

"He ought not to be dangerously ill," said the Commandant. "He is young, and quite one of our athletes—or was. The life he had led here, though not what he would choose, has not been unhealthful. But the doctor, with whom I have discussed his case, says that the wish to recover is lacking. The man is hopeless. He would rather die than live; and his physician thinks it exceedingly likely that he will do so."

"That is sad," said Sir Roger, his eyes still on Virginia.

The Commandant shrugged his shoulders. "We are accustomed to sadness here," he replied. "But the exile and degradation of Noumea are no doubt harder of endurance to a man like Dalahaide—proud, sensitive, refined, intellectual, accustomed to every luxury. He was like a madman when he first came, four or five years ago. Several times he attempted escape and suicide. Then he became sullenly despairing; but I began to take an interest in him, believing that he was not at bottom such a desperate character as the surveillants had grown to consider him. I did what I could to soften his lot, having him introduced to more congenial work in the bureau; but this was not until he had known three months in the Black Cell. Some men lose their minds in the Cachot Noir, though its horrors have been mitigated of late years. But Dalahaide's brain did not fail; and he has proved a valuable man at secretarial work. Also during the plague, three years ago, he volunteered as a nurse, and was admirable. You shall see him in hospital, since you wish it, and even talk with him; but you must not leave New Caledonia with the impression that all convicts are like this man. Now we will finish the inspection of the prison here, and then my carriage shall drive us to the hospital, which is at a little distance."

How Virginia got through the next half-hour she did not know. If she had dared, she would have begged to go on at once to the hospital; but she did not dare. It was necessary to submit to the delay of being guided through the prison, to be shown the galleries and the cells, the Prétoire, and to hear patiently the explanation of the Bertillon system. At last, however, they were once more in the carriage which had been kept waiting for them; but even then they must still exercise patience, for a Disciplinary Camp was on the road along which they must pass, and to betray too much eagerness to reach their journey's end (when avowedly they had come to New Caledonia for information) would have been dangerous. At the camp they must perforce squander twenty or thirty minutes, Virginia and George pretending to take notes of what they saw and heard; and then they turned westward. Before them stretched a long avenue of strangely bent and sloping palms. It was the avenue of the hospital.

They drove down it to a stone archway, glittering white in the sun, and saw beyond a green and shaded garden, jewelled with gorgeous flowers, and heavy with richly mingling scents.

"If Dalahaide is no worse to-day, we shall probably find him in the garden here," said the Commandant. "He must have read at least half a dozen times an old copy of Dante which I lent him; the books in the prison library are not much to his taste."

No one answered, not even Roger. In fact, at the moment Roger was more anxious, perhaps, than any other member of the party, for he realized the existence of a certain danger which Virginia and her brother had apparently lost sight of, although long ago it had been discussed by them all. It had also been provided against; but the suggestion that Maxime Dalahaide might be met here in the garden, the thought that at any moment they might come upon him suddenly and unexpectedly, upset these prudent calculations.

As Maxime and Roger had known each other five years ago, it had been decided that a meeting must be avoided at first, lest in his surprise at seeing a familiar face—like a ghost from another world—the prisoner should cry out, and involuntarily put those who watched upon their guard. The three had planned among themselves, when this day was still in the future, that if they should succeed in their first step, and gain access to Maxime Dalahaide, Roger must keep in the background until his mind had been prepared by Virginia and George Trent for what was to come. The other two, as strangers to him, could approach the prisoner without risk. But they had expected to see him, if at all, in some room or cell, to which certain members of the party might be conducted by request; while here, in this vast garden, with its ambushes of trees and shrubs, any one of the half-hidden gray figures which they could distinguish in the green shadows might prove to be Dalahaide.

Roger did not know what to do. He might offer to stop behind and wait in the carriage outside the garden gates. But if he did this it would seem strange and even ungracious to the Commandant, who was taking so much trouble to entertain them, and to "seem strange" was alone enough to constitute danger. He compromised, keeping behind with George, while Virginia walked ahead with the old Frenchman.

In the midst of the garden stood the quadrangular building of the hospital, the steep roof forming broad verandahs. There were gray figures sitting or lounging there also, but the Commandant said that Number 1280 would not be found among these, for he fled as much as might be from the society of his fellow-convicts.

They turned the corner of a shaded path and came out under a green canopy made by four large palms. A man lay underneath, his head pillowed on his arm, his face upturned—a man in the sordid prison gray. Virginia Beverly grew giddy, and, brave as she had been so far, for an instant she feared that she was going to faint like an ordinary, stay-at-home girl. She started, and caught at the arm of the Commandant, who turned to her in concerned surprise.

"One would think you had guessed that this was our man," he said in a low voice, for the convict, whose face was ghastly pale in the green dusk, seemed to sleep.

"I beg your pardon," whispered Virginia. "I stepped on a stone and twisted my foot. Is this, then, the man we have come to find?"

How well she knew that it was he! How well she knew, though the terrible years had changed the brave young face in the portrait almost beyond the recognition of a stranger. All the gay audacity was gone, therefore much of the individuality which had distinguished it for Virginia. The strong, clear features of the man looked, as he lay there asleep, as if they had been carved from old ivory; the lines were sharpened, there were hollows in the cheeks and under the black lines of the lashes. Even in sleep the dark brows were drawn together in a slight frown, and the clean-cut lips drooped in unutterable melancholy. The figure, lying on its back and extended along the grass, appeared very tall, and lay so still that it might have been the form of a dead man.

Roger, without seeing the sleeping face, guessed by the abrupt stop and the low-spoken words of the two in front that Maxime Dalahaide was found. He drew back slightly, with a meaning glance at George, who stepped forward to join the others.

Suddenly the black line of lashes trembled; a pair of dark, tragic eyes, more like those of Madeleine Dalahaide than the laughing ones of the portrait, opened and looked straight into Virginia's. For a few seconds their gaze remained fixed, as if the white vision had been a broken dream; then a deep flush spread over the thin face of the young man, and he rose to his feet.

"This lady and her brother have come a long way to see New Caledonia," said the Commandant kindly. "They wish to talk to you."

Maxime Dalahaide bowed. Virginia saw that he pressed his lips together, and that the muscles of his face quivered. She guessed how he must suffer at having to gratify—as he supposed—the morbid curiosity of a girl, and it hurt her to think that she must be the one to give him this added pain.

She turned to the Commandant, and, with a voice not quite steady, asked if she and her brother might speak to the man alone. She felt that she should be less embarrassed in her questions, she said, if no one listened. With a smile the old Frenchman consented, bowing like a courtier, and joined Roger Broom, who stood at a little distance out of sight of the convict.

"I thought there was no use embarrassing the poor fellow with any more strangers," Roger explained to the Commandant, as they moved further away down the path by which they had come. "After all, my place in this expedition is only to take a few photographs, wherever they are permitted"; and he touched the camera, slung over his shoulder, of which he had already made ostentatious use on several occasions. "May I have a snapshot of the hospital, with all those chaps on the verandahs? Thanks; we must go a little to the right, then. By Jove! what a lot of gray figures there are about. How do you make sure they can't escape, if they choose, out here where they don't seem to be guarded?"

"It is only 'seem,'" retorted the Commandant, laughing. "All these men are invalids; we make short work of malingerers. Very few could run a dozen yards without falling down, and most of them are well contented as they are. But, if any one should be mad enough to attempt a dash for freedom, four or five surveillants would be on him before he could count twenty. They do not make themselves conspicuous here, that is all."

Sir Roger Broom looked across the eastern wall of the hospital garden, over the green expanse of the great lagoon, and thought much; but he said nothing. Quietly he prepared to take the suggested photograph, and the hand that held the camera did not shake, though he could guess of what, by this time, George Trent and Virginia were talking with the convict under the palms.

When the Commandant had left them alone with him, Maxime Dalahaide remained silent, Virginia's beauty filled him—not with happy worship of its perfection, but rather with an overwhelming bitterness. He was a Thing, of whom this exquisite, fresh young girl wished to ask a few questions, so that she might go back to her world, thousands of miles away, and say, "Only fancy, I talked to one of the convicts—an awful creature. He had murdered a woman, but he was quite quiet, and, as my brother was close beside me, I was not one bit afraid."

Just because he was a Thing, with no right to pride and self-respect, she could ask what she pleased, and he would answer her; but she must begin, not he.

She did begin, yet so differently from the cut-and-dried beginning which he had scornfully expected, that a flash of vivid amazement swept the hardness from the exile's face.

"Be very careful," she said rapidly in English. "Don't speak, don't show anything you may feel. Perhaps we are watched. You are Maxime Dalahaide. We haven't come here for curiosity, as you think, but to save you. We have come thousands of miles for that."

"Why?" It was as if the question fell from his lips without volition. The man did not believe his own ears. He thought that he must have been seized with delirium.

"Because we believe in you and because we are friends of your sister's," Virginia answered. "A man you once knew is with us—Roger Broom. Do you remember?"

"Roger Broom!" Maxime repeated dazedly. "It is like an echo from the past. Yes—yes, I remember."

"It is through him that we have been able to reach you. He is close by, but dared not let you see him, until you had been warned. Now, we must arrange everything in a few minutes for your escape; the Commandant has been kind, but he may not give us long together."

"I think I must be dreaming," stammered Maxime, all his bitterness forgotten. "I've been ill. I don't understand things as quickly as I used. Escape! You have come here to—help me to escape. Yes, it is certainly a dream. I shall wake up by and by!"

"You will wake up free," said Virginia not daring to raise her voice above a low monotone. "Free, on our yacht, that has brought us from France to take you home."

Suddenly a glaze of tears overspread Maxime Dalahaide's dark eyes. "Home?" he echoed wistfully. "Home! Ah, if it might be!"

"It shall be," returned Virginia. "George, tell him our plan. You can do it better than I."

"The thing is to get you on board the yacht," said Trent. "After that, you're all right. We can show our heels to pretty well anything in these parts."

Dalahaide shook his head. "There are no words to thank you for what you have done, and would do for me," he answered. "But it is impossible. Once I thought of escape. I tried and failed, as others have tried and failed. After the second time, they put me in the Black Cell, and I saved myself from madness by calling to memory all of Shakespeare that I had ever learned. I don't say 'impossible' because I am afraid of that again. I have passed beyond fear of anything. What have I left to dread? I know the worst; I have lived through the worst that can befall a man. But in that dreadful blackness, where my very soul seemed to dissolve in night, I realized that, even if I could escape, how useless freedom would be if my innocence were not proved. I could not go to France or England. I should live a hunted life. As well be an exile here as nearer home—better, perhaps, now that the first bitterness has passed."

"You think this because you've been ill, and your blood runs slow," said George Trent. "All you need is to be strong again, and——"

"Strong again!" echoed Maxime, with sorrowful contempt. "I've been thanking heaven that I hadn't strength enough left to care for anything. It's true, as you say; the oil in my lamp of life burns low, and so much the better for me. What I want now is to get it all over as soon as may be. You are kind—you are so good to me that I am lost in wonder; yet even you cannot give me a freedom worth having. Take back my love to my sister, but tell her—tell her that I am content to stay as I am."

"Content to die, you mean!" cried Virginia.

"Oh, you are ill indeed to feel like this. How can you bear to stay here, when you have a chance to be a free man—even if not a happy man—to stay here, and let your enemy, who sent you to this place, laugh and think how his plot against you has succeeded?"

The dreamy look of weary resignation on Maxime Dalahaide's face changed to alertness. "Why do you speak of an enemy, and a plot against me?" he asked. "That poor girl was murdered; but I have never thought that she was killed because her murderer wished to involve me. That part was an accident. Liane Devereux——"

"Is not dead," broke in Virginia. "She is on our yacht now, in the harbour of Noumea. When you come, and she sees you, she will confess the whole plot."

"But I saw her lying dead—a thousand times that sight has been before my eyes."

"It was not she. If you want to know all, to fathom the whole mystery, and learn how to prove your own innocence, you will not refuse to do what we ask."

Maxime's thin face no longer looked like a carving in old ivory. The statue had come to life. The spring of hope had begun to stir in his veins. "If it were possible to prove it—at this late day!" he exclaimed. "But even if it were—you forget the tremendous difficulties in the way of escape. How could I reach your yacht? It could not come near enough to shore here to pick me up; even a small boat would be seen——"

"Not at night," said Virginia.

"Remember, it is moonlight. The night will be like day. Long before a small boat could reach the yacht from the beach she would be followed, overtaken, and not only should I be brought back, but I should have the misery of knowing that I had been the cause of bringing my brave friends into trouble. They would fire upon us. If I were killed it would matter little enough; but if you were to be shot——" He spoke to George Trent, but his eyes moved quickly to Virginia's face.

"My sister would be waiting for us on board the Bella Cuba," said Trent. "Roger Broom and I will take jolly good care of ourselves—and of you, too, if you'll only give us a chance."

"If you'd come here a month ago," sighed the prisoner, "before I got this wound in my back! Now I'm afraid it's too late. I've let myself go. I thought I saw the one door of escape for me opening—death; and instead of turning my back I walked toward it. I've let my strength down. I haven't eaten or slept much, and I began to have a pleasant feeling of slipping easily out with the tide. Now there's an incentive to stop, the tide's too strong and I'm too weak. I can't count on myself."

"Count on us," said George. "We'll see you through, you bet. And think of your sister. We promised we'd take you back with us. We can't go to her without you, after raising her hopes. It would kill her." Trent glanced at Virginia, as if expecting her to add encouraging arguments to his; but she was silent, her eyes alone appealing to Dalahaide. George Trent was her half-brother, and had known her all her life, but he felt the thrill of that look in the girl's beautiful eyes. How much more, then, must Maxime Dalahaide have felt it, he said to himself.

"It is the risk for you I think of—if I fail," the prisoner exclaimed. "If I had only myself to consider I should hesitate no longer."

"We have come a long, long way to you," Virginia's eyes said; and her lips would have added something had not George's hand fallen suddenly in warning on her shoulder. "Somebody is coming," he whispered. "For all our sakes, don't fail us, Dalahaide. We shall look for you to-night—there," and he nodded toward the water. "Make your way to the beach and hide among the rocks till you see our little boat. Don't take to the water—remember the sharks. If you're not there to-night, we'll hang about till the next."

"We'll wait till you come, if we wait a year," said Virginia.

There was time for no more. The Commandant, with Roger Broom by his side, appeared round the corner of the winding path near by.

"Well, mademoiselle, have we given you time to finish your interview, and has it been satisfactory?" asked the old Frenchman good-naturedly.

"You have given us just enough time, and it has been most satisfactory, thank you," the girl answered. "I hope," she added, "to make the very best use of it later." And again her eyes met those of the statue that she had waked to life.