The Eight Strokes of the Clock by Maurice Le Blanc

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At nine o'clock he went to the Gymnase, where he had taken a private box.

At half-past nine, as Hortense had not arrived, he rang her up, though
without thought of anxiety. The maid replied that Madame Daniel had not
come in yet.

Seized with a sudden fear, Renine hurried to the furnished flat which
Hortense was occupying for the time being, near the Parc Monceau, and
questioned the maid, whom he had engaged for her and who was completely
devoted to him. The woman said that her mistress had gone out at two
o'clock, with a stamped letter in her hand, saying that she was going to
the post and that she would come back to dress. This was the last that had
been seen of her.

"To whom was the letter addressed?"

"To you, sir. I saw the writing on the envelope: Prince Serge Renine."

He waited until midnight, but in vain. Hortense did not return; nor did she
return next day.

"Not a word to any one," said Renine to the maid. "Say that your mistress
is in the country and that you are going to join her."

For his own part, he had not a doubt: Hortense's disappearance was
explained by the very fact of the date, the 18th of October. She was the
seventh victim of the lady with the hatchet.

* * * * *

"The abduction," said Renine to himself, "precedes the blow of the hatchet
by a week. I have, therefore, at the present moment, seven full days before
me. Let us say six, to avoid any surprise. This is Saturday: Hortense must
be set free by mid-day on Friday; and, to make sure of this, I must know
her hiding-place by nine o'clock on Thursday evening at latest."

Renine wrote, "THURSDAY EVENING, NINE O'CLOCK," in big letters, on a card
which he nailed above the mantelpiece in his study. Then at midday on
Saturday, the day after the disappearance, he locked himself into the
study, after telling his man not to disturb him except for meals and
letters.

He spent four days there, almost without moving. He had immediately sent
for a set of all the leading newspapers which had spoken in detail of the
first six crimes. When he had read and reread them, he closed the shutters,
drew the curtains and lay down on the sofa in the dark, with the door
bolted, thinking.

By Tuesday evening he was no further advanced than on the Saturday. The
darkness was as dense as ever. He had not discovered the smallest clue for
his guidance, nor could he see the slightest reason to hope.

At times, notwithstanding his immense power of self-control and his
unlimited confidence in the resources at his disposal, at times he would
quake with anguish. Would he arrive in time? There was no reason why he
should see more clearly during the last few days than during those which
had already elapsed. And this meant that Hortense Daniel would inevitably
be murdered.

The thought tortured him. He was attached to Hortense by a much stronger
and deeper feeling than the appearance of the relations between them would
have led an onlooker to believe. The curiosity at the beginning, the first
desire, the impulse to protect Hortense, to distract her, to inspire her
with a relish for existence: all this had simply turned to love. Neither of
them was aware of it, because they barely saw each other save at critical
times when they were occupied with the adventures of others and not with
their own. But, at the first onslaught of danger, Renine realized the place
which Hortense had taken in his life and he was in despair at knowing her
to be a prisoner and a martyr and at being unable to save her.

He spent a feverish, agitated night, turning the case over and over from
every point of view. The Wednesday morning was also a terrible time for
him. He was losing ground. Giving up his hermit-like seclusion, he threw
open the windows and paced to and fro through his rooms, ran out into the
street and came in again, as though fleeing before the thought that
obsessed him:

"Hortense is suffering.... Hortense is in the depths.... She sees the
hatchet.... She is calling to me.... She is entreating me.... And I can do
nothing...."

It was at five o'clock in the afternoon that, on examining the list of the
six names, he received that little inward shock which is a sort of signal
of the truth that is being sought for. A light shot through his mind. It
was not, to be sure, that brilliant light in which every detail is made
plain, but it was enough to tell him in which direction to move.

His plan of campaign was formed at once. He sent Adolphe, his chauffeur,
to the principal newspapers, with a few lines which were to appear in type
among the next morning's advertisements. Adolphe was also told to go to the
laundry at Courbevoie, where Mlle. Covereau, the second of the six victims,
had been employed.

On the Thursday, Renine did not stir out of doors. In the afternoon, he
received several letters in reply to his advertisement. Then two telegrams
arrived. Lastly, at three o'clock, there came a pneumatic letter, bearing
the Trocadero postmark, which seemed to be what he was expecting.

He turned up a directory, noted an address--"M. de Lourtier-Vaneau, retired
colonial governor, 47 _bis_, Avenue Kleber"--and ran down to his car:

"Adolphe, 47 _bis_, Avenue Kleber."

* * * * *

He was shown into a large study furnished with magnificent book-cases
containing old volumes in costly bindings. M. de Lourtier-Vaneau was a man
still in the prime of life, wearing a slightly grizzled beard and, by his
affable manners and genuine distinction, commanding confidence and liking.

"M. de Lourtier," said Renine, "I have ventured to call on your excellency
because I read in last year's newspapers that you used to know one of the
victims of the lady with the hatchet, Honorine Vernisset."

"Why, of course we knew her!" cried M. de Lourtier. "My wife used to employ
her as a dressmaker by the day. Poor girl!"

"M. de Lourtier, a lady of my acquaintance has disappeared as the other six
victims disappeared.

"What!" exclaimed M. de Lourtier, with a start. "But I have followed the
newspapers carefully. There was nothing on the 18th of October."

"Yes, a woman of whom I am very fond, Madame Hortense Daniel, was abducted
on the 17th of October."

"And this is the 22nd!"

"Yes; and the murder will be committed on the 24th."

"Horrible! Horrible! It must be prevented at all costs...."

"And I shall perhaps succeed in preventing it, with your excellency's
assistance."

"But have you been to the police?"

"No. We are faced by mysteries which are, so to speak, absolute and
compact, which offer no gap through which the keenest eyes can see and
which it is useless to hope to clear up by ordinary methods, such as
inspection of the scenes of the crimes, police enquiries, searching for
finger-prints and so on. As none of those proceedings served any good
purpose in the previous cases, it would be waste of time to resort to them
in a seventh, similar case. An enemy who displays such skill and subtlety
would not leave behind her any of those clumsy traces which are the first
things that a professional detective seizes upon."

"Then what have you done?"

"Before taking any action, I have reflected. I gave four days to thinking
the matter over."

M. de Lourtier-Vaneau examined his visitor closely and, with a touch of
irony, asked:

"And the result of your meditations ...?"

"To begin with," said Renine, refusing to be put out of countenance, "I
have submitted all these cases to a comprehensive survey, which hitherto
no one else had done. This enabled me to discover their general meaning,
to put aside all the tangle of embarrassing theories and, since no one was
able to agree as to the motives of all this filthy business, to attribute
it to the only class of persons capable of it."

"That is to say?"

"Lunatics, your excellency."

M. de Lourtier-Vaneau started:

"Lunatics? What an idea!"

"M. de Lourtier, the woman known as the lady with the hatchet is a
madwoman."

"But she would be locked up!"

"We don't know that she's not. We don't know that she is not one of those
half-mad people, apparently harmless, who are watched so slightly that they
have full scope to indulge their little manias, their wild-beast instincts.
Nothing could be more treacherous than these creatures. Nothing could be
more crafty, more patient, more persistent, more dangerous and at the same
time more absurd and more logical, more slovenly and more methodical. All
these epithets, M. de Lourtier, may be applied to the doings of the lady
with the hatchet. The obsession of an idea and the continual repetition
of an act are characteristics of the maniac. I do not yet know the idea
by which the lady with the hatchet is obsessed but I do know the act that
results from it; and it is always the same. The victim is bound with
precisely similar ropes. She is killed after the same number of days. She
is struck by an identical blow, with the same instrument, in the same
place, the middle of the forehead, producing an absolutely vertical wound.
An ordinary murderer displays some variety. His trembling hand swerves
aside and strikes awry. The lady with the hatchet does not tremble. It is
as though she had taken measurements; and the edge of her weapon does not
swerve by a hair's breadth. Need I give you any further proofs or examine
all the other details with you? Surely not. You now possess the key to the
riddle; and you know as I do that only a lunatic can behave in this way,
stupidly, savagely, mechanically, like a striking clock or the blade of the
guillotine...."

M. de Lourtier-Vaneau nodded his head:

"Yes, that is so. One can see the whole affair from that angle ... and I
am beginning to believe that this is how one ought to see it. But, if we
admit that this madwoman has the sort of mathematical logic which governed
the murders of the six victims, I see no connection between the victims
themselves. She struck at random. Why this victim rather than that?"

"Ah," said Renine. "Your excellency is asking me a question which I asked
myself from the first moment, the question which sums up the whole problem
and which cost me so much trouble to solve! Why Hortense Daniel rather than
another? Among two millions of women who might have been selected, why
Hortense? Why little Vernisset? Why Miss Williamson? If the affair is such
as I conceived it, as a whole, that is to say, based upon the blind and
fantastic logic of a madwoman, a choice was inevitably exercised. Now in
what did that choice consist? What was the quality, or the defect, or the
sign needed to induce the lady with the hatchet to strike? In a word, if
she chose--and she must have chosen--what directed her choice?"

"Have you found the answer?"

Renine paused and replied:

"Yes, your excellency, I have. And I could have found it at the very
outset, since all that I had to do was to make a careful examination of the
list of victims. But these flashes of truth are never kindled save in a
brain overstimulated by effort and reflection. I stared at the list twenty
times over, before that little detail took a definite shape."

"I don't follow you," said M. de Lourtier-Vaneau.

"M. de Lourtier, it may be noted that, if a number of persons are brought
together in any transaction, or crime, or public scandal or what not, they
are almost invariably described in the same way. On this occasion, the
newspapers never mentioned anything more than their surnames in speaking
of Madame Ladoue, Mlle. Ardent or Mlle. Covereau. On the other hand, Mlle.
Vernisset and Miss Williamson were always described by their Christian
names as well: Honorine and Hermione. If the same thing had been done in
the case of all the six victims, there would have been no mystery."

"Why not?"

"Because we should at once have realized the relation existing between the
six unfortunate women, as I myself suddenly realized it on comparing those
two Christian names with that of Hortense Daniel. You understand now, don't
you? You see the three Christian names before your eyes...."

M. de Lourtier-Vaneau seemed to be perturbed. Turning a little pale, he
said:

"What do you mean? What do you mean?"

"I mean," continued Renine, in a clear voice, sounding each syllable
separately, "I mean that you see before your eyes three Christian names
which all three begin with the same initial and which all three, by a
remarkable coincidence, consist of the same number of letters, as you may
prove. If you enquire at the Courbevoie laundry, where Mlle. Covereau
used to work, you will find that her name was Hilairie. Here again we
have the same initial and the same number of letters. There is no need
to seek any farther. We are sure, are we not, that the Christian names
of all the victims offer the same peculiarities? And this gives us, with
absolute certainty, the key to the problem which was set us. It explains
the madwoman's choice. We now know the connection between the unfortunate
victims. There can be no mistake about it. It's that and nothing else. And
how this method of choosing confirms my theory! What proof of madness! Why
kill these women rather than any others? Because their names begin with
an H and consist of eight letters! You understand me, M. de Lourtier, do
you not? The number of letters is eight. The initial letter is the eighth
letter of the alphabet; and the word _huit_, eight, begins with an H.
Always the letter H. _And the implement used to commit the crime was a
hatchet_. Is your excellency prepared to tell me that the lady with the
hatchet is not a madwoman?"

Renine interrupted himself and went up to M. de Lourtier-Vaneau:

"What's the matter, your excellency? Are you unwell?"

"No, no," said M. de Lourtier, with the perspiration streaming down his
forehead. "No ... but all this story is so upsetting! Only think, I knew
one of the victims! And then...."

Renine took a water-bottle and tumbler from a small table, filled the glass
and handed it to M. de Lourtier, who sipped a few mouthfuls from it and
then, pulling himself together, continued, in a voice which he strove to
make firmer than it had been:

"Very well. We'll admit your supposition. Even so, it is necessary that it
should lead to tangible results. What have you done?"

"This morning I published in all the newspapers an advertisement worded as
follows: 'Excellent cook seeks situation. Write before 5 P.M. to Herminie,
Boulevard Haussmann, etc.' You continue to follow me, don't you, M. de
Lourtier? Christian names beginning with an H and consisting of eight
letters are extremely rare and are all rather out of date: Herminie,
Hilairie, Hermione. Well, these Christian names, for reasons which I do not
understand, are essential to the madwoman. She cannot do without them. To
find women bearing one of these Christian names and for this purpose only
she summons up all her remaining powers of reason, discernment, reflection
and intelligence. She hunts about. She asks questions. She lies in wait.
She reads newspapers which she hardly understands, but in which certain
details, certain capital letters catch her eye. And consequently I did not
doubt for a second that this name of Herminie, printed in large type, would
attract her attention and that she would be caught to-day in the trap of my
advertisement."

"Did she write?" asked M. de Lourtier-Vaneau, anxiously.

"Several ladies," Renine continued, "wrote the letters which are usual in
such cases, to offer a home to the so-called Herminie. But I received an
express letter which struck me as interesting."

"From whom?"

"Read it, M. de Lourtier."

M. de Lourtier-Vaneau snatched the sheet from Renine's hands and cast a
glance at the signature. His first movement was one of surprise, as though
he had expected something different. Then he gave a long, loud laugh of
something like joy and relief.

"Why do you laugh, M. de Lourtier? You seem pleased."

"Pleased, no. But this letter is signed by my wife."

"And you were afraid of finding something else?"

"Oh no! But since it's my wife...."

He did not finish his sentence and said to Renine:

"Come this way."

He led him through a passage to a little drawing-room where a fair-haired
lady, with a happy and tender expression on her comely face, was sitting in
the midst of three children and helping them with their lessons.

She rose. M. de Lourtier briefly presented his visitor and asked his wife:

"Suzanne, is this express message from you?"

"To Mlle. Herminie, Boulevard Haussmann? Yes," she said, "I sent it. As you
know, our parlour-maid's leaving and I'm looking out for a new one."

Renine interrupted her:

"Excuse me, madame. Just one question: where did you get the woman's
address?"

She flushed. Her husband insisted:

"Tell us, Suzanne. Who gave you the address?"

"I was rung up."

"By whom?"

She hesitated and then said:

"Your old nurse."

"Felicienne?"

"Yes."

M. de Lourtier cut short the conversation and, without permitting Renine to
ask any more questions, took him back to the study:

"You see, monsieur, that pneumatic letter came from a quite natural source.
Felicienne, my old nurse, who lives not far from Paris on an allowance
which I make her, read your advertisement and told Madame de Lourtier of
it. For, after all," he added laughing, "I don't suppose that you suspect
my wife of being the lady with the hatchet."

"No."

"Then the incident is closed ... at least on my side. I have done what I
could, I have listened to your arguments and I am very sorry that I can be
of no more use to you...."

He drank another glass of water and sat down. His face was distorted.
Renine looked at him for a few seconds, as a man will look at a failing
adversary who has only to receive the knock-out blow, and, sitting down
beside him, suddenly gripped his arm:

"Your excellency, if you do not speak, Hortense Daniel will be the seventh
victim."

"I have nothing to say, monsieur! What do you think I know?"

"The truth! My explanations have made it plain to you. Your distress, your
terror are positive proofs."

"But, after all, monsieur, if I knew, why should I be silent?"

"For fear of scandal. There is in your life, so a profound intuition
assures me, something that you are constrained to hide. The truth about
this monstrous tragedy, which suddenly flashed upon you, this truth, if
it were known, would spell dishonour to you, disgrace ... and you are
shrinking from your duty."

M. de Lourtier did not reply. Renine leant over him and, looking him in
the eyes, whispered:

"There will be no scandal. I shall be the only person in the world to
know what has happened. And I am as much interested as yourself in not
attracting attention, because I love Hortense Daniel and do not wish her
name to be mixed up in your horrible story."

They remained face to face during a long interval. Renine's expression was
harsh and unyielding. M. de Lourtier felt that nothing would bend him if
the necessary words remained unspoken; but he could not bring himself to
utter them:

"You are mistaken," he said. "You think you have seen things that don't
exist."

Renine received a sudden and terrifying conviction that, if this man took
refuge in a stolid silence, there was no hope for Hortense Daniel; and he
was so much infuriated by the thought that the key to the riddle lay there,
within reach of his hand, that he clutched M. de Lourtier by the throat and
forced him backwards:

"I'll have no more lies! A woman's life is at stake! Speak ... and speak at
once! If not ...!"

M. de Lourtier had no strength left in him. All resistance was impossible.
It was not that Renine's attack alarmed him, or that he was yielding to
this act of violence, but he felt crushed by that indomitable will, which
seemed to admit no obstacle, and he stammered:

"You are right. It is my duty to tell everything, whatever comes of it."

"Nothing will come of it, I pledge my word, on condition that you save
Hortense Daniel. A moment's hesitation may undo us all. Speak. No details,
but the actual facts."

"Madame de Lourtier is not my wife. The only woman who has the right to
bear my name is one whom I married when I was a young colonial official.
She was a rather eccentric woman, of feeble mentality and incredibly
subject to impulses that amounted to monomania. We had two children, twins,
whom she worshipped and in whose company she would no doubt have recovered
her mental balance and moral health, when, by a stupid accident--a
passing carriage--they were killed before her eyes. The poor thing went
mad ... with the silent, secretive madness which you imagined. Some time
afterwards, when I was appointed to an Algerian station, I brought her to
France and put her in the charge of a worthy creature who had nursed me and
brought me up. Two years later, I made the acquaintance of the woman who
was to become the joy of my life. You saw her just now. She is the mother
of my children and she passes as my wife. Are we to sacrifice her? Is our
whole existence to be shipwrecked in horror and must our name be coupled
with this tragedy of madness and blood?"

Renine thought for a moment and asked:

"What is the other one's name?"

"Hermance."

"Hermance! Still that initial ... still those eight letters!"

"That was what made me realize everything just now," said M. de Lourtier.
"When you compared the different names, I at once reflected that my unhappy
wife was called Hermance and that she was mad ... and all the proofs leapt
to my mind."

"But, though we understand the selection of the victims, how are we to
explain the murders? What are the symptoms of her madness? Does she suffer
at all?"

"She does not suffer very much at present. But she has suffered in the
past, the most terrible suffering that you can imagine: since the moment
when her two children were run over before her eyes, night and day she had
the horrible spectacle of their death before her eyes, without a moment's
interruption, for she never slept for a single second. Think of the torture
of it! To see her children dying through all the hours of the long day and
all the hours of the interminable night!"

"Nevertheless," Renine objected, "it is not to drive away that picture that
she commits murder?"

"Yes, possibly," said M. de Lourtier, thoughtfully, "to drive it away by
sleep."

"I don't understand."

"You don't understand, because we are talking of a madwoman ... and because
all that happens in that disordered brain is necessarily incoherent and
abnormal?"

"Obviously. But, all the same, is your supposition based on facts that
justify it?"

"Yes, on facts which I had, in a way, overlooked but which to-day assume
their true significance. The first of these facts dates a few years back,
to a morning when my old nurse for the first time found Hermance fast
asleep. Now she was holding her hands clutched around a puppy which she had
strangled. And the same thing was repeated on three other occasions."

"And she slept?"

"Yes, each time she slept a sleep which lasted for several nights."

"And what conclusion did you draw?"

"I concluded that the relaxation of the nerves provoked by taking life
exhausted her and predisposed her for sleep."

Renine shuddered:

"That's it! There's not a doubt of it! The taking life, the effort of
killing makes her sleep. And she began with women what had served her so
well with animals. All her madness has become concentrated on that one
point: she kills them to rob them of their sleep! She wanted sleep; and she
steals the sleep of others! That's it, isn't it? For the past two years,
she has been sleeping?"

"For the past two years, she has been sleeping," stammered M. de Lourtier.

Renine gripped him by the shoulder:

"And it never occurred to you that her madness might go farther, that she
would stop at nothing to win the blessing of sleep! Let us make haste,
monsieur! All this is horrible!"

They were both making for the door, when M. de Lourtier hesitated. The
telephone-bell was ringing.

"It's from there," he said.

"From there?"

"Yes, my old nurse gives me the news at the same time every day."

He unhooked the receivers and handed one to Renine, who whispered in his
ear the questions which he was to put.

"Is that you, Felicienne? How is she?"

"Not so bad, sir."

"Is she sleeping well?"

"Not very well, lately. Last night, indeed, she never closed her eyes. So
she's very gloomy just now."

"What is she doing at the moment?"

"She is in her room."

"Go to her, Felicienne, and don't leave her."

"I can't. She's locked herself in."

"You must, Felicienne. Break open the door. I'm coming straight on....
Hullo! Hullo!... Oh, damnation, they've cut us off!"

Without a word, the two men left the flat and ran down to the avenue.
Renine hustled M. de Lourtier into the car:

"What address?"

"Ville d'Avray."

"Of course! In the very center of her operations ... like a spider in the
middle of her web! Oh, the shame of it!"

He was profoundly agitated. He saw the whole adventure in its monstrous
reality.

"Yes, she kills them to steal their sleep, as she used to kill the animals.
It is the same obsession, but complicated by a whole array of utterly
incomprehensible practices and superstitions. She evidently fancies that
the similarity of the Christian names to her own is indispensable and that
she will not sleep unless her victim is an Hortense or an Honorine. It's
a madwoman's argument; its logic escapes us and we know nothing of its
origin; but we can't get away from it. She has to hunt and has to find. And
she finds and carries off her prey beforehand and watches over it for the
appointed number of days, until the moment when, crazily, through the hole
which she digs with a hatchet in the middle of the skull, she absorbs the
sleep which stupefies her and grants her oblivion for a given period. And
here again we see absurdity and madness. Why does she fix that period at so
many days? Why should one victim ensure her a hundred and twenty days of
sleep and another a hundred and twenty-five? What insanity! The calculation
is mysterious and of course mad; but the fact remains that, at the end of
a hundred or a hundred and twenty-five days, as the case may be, a fresh
victim is sacrificed; and there have been six already and the seventh is
awaiting her turn. Ah, monsieur, what a terrible responsibility for you!
Such a monster as that! She should never have been allowed out of sight!"

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