The Eight Strokes of the Clock by Maurice Le Blanc

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"Well, what do you say to it? An arrant rogue, isn't he?"

The inspector nodded his head:

"It may be.... But, all the same ... so far there's no real evidence."

"Wait, M. Morisseau," said Renine. "Wait until we've had our interview with
M. Dudouis. For we shall see M. Dudouis at the prefecture, shall we not?"

"Yes, he'll be there at three o'clock."

"Well, you'll be convinced, Mr. Inspector! I tell you here and now that you
will be convinced."

Renine was chuckling like a man who feels certain of the course of events.
Hortense, who was standing near him and was able to speak to him without
being heard by the others, asked, in a low voice:

"You've got him, haven't you?"

He nodded his head in assent:

"Got him? I should think I have! All the same, I'm no farther forward than
I was at the beginning."

"But this is awful! And your proofs?"

"Not the shadow of a proof ... I was hoping to trip him up. But he's kept
his feet, the rascal!"

"Still, you're certain it's he?"

"It can't be any one else. I had an intuition at the very outset; and I've
not taken my eyes off him since. I have seen his anxiety increasing as my
investigations seemed to centre on him and concern him more closely. Now I
know."

"And he's in love with Madame Aubrieux?"

"In logic, he's bound to be. But so far we have only hypothetical
suppositions, or rather certainties which are personal to myself. We shall
never intercept the guillotine with those. Ah, if we could only find the
bank-notes! Given the bank-notes, M. Dudouis would act. Without them, he
will laugh in my face."

"What then?" murmured Hortense, in anguished accents.

He did not reply. He walked up and down the room, assuming an air of gaiety
and rubbing his hands. All was going so well! It was really a treat to take
up a case which, so to speak, worked itself out automatically.

"Suppose we went on to the prefecture, M. Morisseau? The chief must be
there by now. And, having gone so far, we may as well finish. Will M.
Dutreuil come with us?"

"Why not?" said Dutreuil, arrogantly.

But, just as Renine was opening the door, there was a noise in the passage
and the manager ran up, waving his arms:

"Is M. Dutreuil still here?... M. Dutreuil, your flat is on fire!... A man
outside told us. He saw it from the square."

The young man's eyes lit up. For perhaps half a second his mouth was
twisted by a smile which Renine noticed:

"Oh, you ruffian!" he cried. "You've given yourself away, my beauty! It was
you who set fire to the place upstairs; and now the notes are burning."

He blocked his exit.

"Let me pass," shouted Dutreuil. "There's a fire and no one can get in,
because no one else has a key. Here it is. Let me pass, damn it!"

Renine snatched the key from his hand and, holding him by the collar of his
coat:

"Don't you move, my fine fellow! The game's up! You precious blackguard! M.
Morisseau, will you give orders to the sergeant not to let him out of his
sight and to blow out his brains if he tries to get away? Sergeant, we rely
on you! Put a bullet into him, if necessary!..."

He hurried up the stairs, followed by Hortense and the chief inspector, who
was protesting rather peevishly:

"But, I say, look here, it wasn't he who set the place on fire! How do you
make out that he set it on fire, seeing that he never left us?"

"Why, he set it on fire beforehand, to be sure!"

"How? I ask you, how?"

"How do I know? But a fire doesn't break out like that, for no reason at
all, at the very moment when a man wants to burn compromising papers."

They heard a commotion upstairs. It was the waiters of the restaurant
trying to burst the door open. An acrid smell filled the well of the
stair-case.

Renine reached the top floor:

"By your leave, friends. I have the key."

He inserted it in the lock and opened the door.

He was met by a gust of smoke so dense that one might well have supposed
the whole floor to be ablaze. Renine at once saw that the fire had gone out
of its own accord, for lack of fuel, and that there were no more flames:

"M. Morisseau, you won't let any one come in with us, will you? An intruder
might spoil everything. Bolt the door, that will be best."

He stepped into the front room, where the fire had obviously had its chief
centre. The furniture, the walls and the ceiling, though blackened by the
smoke, had not been touched. As a matter of fact, the fire was confined to
a blaze of papers which was still burning in the middle of the room, in
front of the window.

Renine struck his forehead:

"What a fool I am! What an unspeakable ass!"

"Why?" asked the inspector.

"The hat-box, of course! The cardboard hat-box which was standing on the
table. That's where he hid the notes. They were there all through our
search."

"Impossible!"

"Why, yes, we always overlook that particular hiding-place, the one just
under our eyes, within reach of our hands! How could one imagine that a
thief would leave sixty thousand francs in an open cardboard box, in which
he places his hat when he comes in, with an absent-minded air? That's just
the one place we don't look in.... Well played, M. Dutreuil!"

The inspector, who remained incredulous, repeated:

"No, no, impossible! We were with him and he could not have started the
fire himself."

"Everything was prepared beforehand on the supposition that there might be
an alarm.... The hat-box ... the tissue paper ... the bank-notes: they must
all have been steeped in some inflammable liquid. He must have thrown a
match, a chemical preparation or what not into it, as we were leaving."

"But we should have seen him, hang it all! And then is it credible that
a man who has committed a murder for the sake of sixty thousand francs
should do away with the money in this way? If the hiding-place was such
a good one--and it was, because we never discovered it--why this useless
destruction?"

"He got frightened, M. Morisseau. Remember that his head is at stake
and he knows it. Anything rather than the guillotine; and they--the
bank-notes--were the only proof which we had against him. How could he
have left them where they were?"

Morisseau was flabbergasted:

"What! The only proof?"

"Why, obviously!"

"But your witnesses? Your evidence? All that you were going to tell the
chief?"

"Mere bluff."

"Well, upon my word," growled the bewildered inspector, "you're a cool
customer!"

"Would you have taken action without my bluff?"

"No."

"Then what more do you want?"

Renine stooped to stir the ashes. But there was nothing left, not even
those remnants of stiff paper which still retain their shape.

"Nothing," he said. "It's queer, all the same! How the deuce did he manage
to set the thing alight?"

He stood up, looking attentively about him. Hortense had a feeling that he
was making his supreme effort and that, after this last struggle in the
dark, he would either have devised his plan of victory or admit that he was
beaten.

Faltering with anxiety, she asked:

"It's all up, isn't it?"

"No, no," he said, thoughtfully, "it's not all up. It was, a few seconds
ago. But now there is a gleam of light ... and one that gives me hope."

"God grant that it may be justified!"

"We must go slowly," he said. "It is only an attempt, but a fine, a very
fine attempt; and it may succeed."

He was silent for a moment; then, with an amused smile and a click of the
tongue, he said:

"An infernally clever fellow, that Dutreuil! His trick of burning the
notes: what a fertile imagination! And what coolness! A pretty dance the
beggar has led me! He's a master!"

He fetched a broom from the kitchen and swept a part of the ashes into the
next room, returning with a hat-box of the same size and appearance as the
one which had been burnt. After crumpling the tissue paper with which it
was filled, he placed the hat-box on the little table and set fire to it
with a match.

It burst into flames, which he extinguished when they had consumed half
the cardboard and nearly all the paper. Then he took from an inner pocket
of his waistcoat a bundle of bank-notes and selected six, which he burnt
almost completely, arranging the remains and hiding the rest of the notes
at the bottom of the box, among the ashes and the blackened bits of paper:

"M. Morisseau," he said, when he had done, "I am asking for your assistance
for the last time. Go and fetch Dutreuil. Tell him just this: 'You are
unmasked. The notes did not catch fire. Come with me.' And bring him up
here."

Despite his hesitation and his fear of exceeding his instructions from the
head of the detective service, the chief-inspector was powerless to throw
off the ascendancy which Renine had acquired over him. He left the room.

Renine turned to Hortense:

"Do you understand my plan of battle?"

"Yes," she said, "but it's a dangerous experiment. Do you think that
Dutreuil will fall into the trap?"

"Everything depends on the state of his nerves and the degree of
demoralization to which he is reduced. A surprise attack may very well do
for him."

"Nevertheless, suppose he recognizes by some sign that the box has been
changed?"

"Oh, of course, he has a few chances in his favour! The fellow is much more
cunning than I thought and quite capable of wriggling out of the trap.
On the other hand, however, how uneasy he must be! How the blood must be
buzzing in his ears and obscuring his sight! No, I don't think that he will
avoid the trap.... He will give in.... He will give in...."

They exchanged no more words. Renine did not move. Hortense was stirred to
the very depths of her being. The life of an innocent man hung trembling in
the balance. An error of judgment, a little bad luck ... and, twelve hours
later, Jacques Aubrieux would be put to death. And together with a horrible
anguish she experienced, in spite of all, a feeling of eager curiosity.
What was Prince Renine going to do? What would be the outcome of the
experiment on which he was venturing? What resistance would Gaston Dutreuil
offer? She lived through one of those minutes of superhuman tension in
which life becomes intensified until it reaches its utmost value.

They heard footsteps on the stairs, the footsteps of men in a hurry. The
sound drew nearer. They were reaching the top floor.

Hortense looked at her companion. He had stood up and was listening, his
features already transfigured by action. The footsteps were now echoing in
the passage. Then, suddenly, he ran to the door and cried:

"Quick! Let's make an end of it!"

Two or three detectives and a couple of waiters entered. He caught hold of
Dutreuil in the midst of the detectives and pulled him by the arm, gaily
exclaiming:

"Well done, old man! That trick of yours with the table and the
water-bottle was really splendid! A masterpiece, on my word! Only, it
didn't come off!"

"What do you mean? What's the matter?" mumbled Gaston Dutreuil, staggering.

"What I say: the fire burnt only half the tissue-paper and the hat-box;
and, though some of the bank-notes were destroyed, like the tissue-paper,
the others are there, at the bottom.... You understand? The long-sought
notes, the great proof of the murder: they're there, where you hid them....
As chance would have it, they've escaped burning.... Here, look: there
are the numbers; you can check them.... Oh, you're done for, done for, my
beauty!"

The young man drew himself up stiffly. His eyelids quivered. He did not
accept Renine's invitation to look; he examined neither the hat-box nor
the bank-notes. From the first moment, without taking the time to reflect
and before his instinct could warn him, he believed what he was told and
collapsed heavily into a chair, weeping.

The surprise attack, to use Renine's expression, had succeeded. On seeing
all his plans baffled and the enemy master of his secrets, the wretched man
had neither the strength nor the perspicacity necessary to defend himself.
He threw up the sponge.

Renine gave him no time to breathe:

"Capital! You're saving your head; and that's all, my good youth! Write
down your confession and get it off your chest. Here's a fountain-pen....
The luck has been against you, I admit. It was devilishly well thought
out, your trick of the last moment. You had the bank-notes which were in
your way and which you wanted to destroy. Nothing simpler. You take a big,
round-bellied water-bottle and stand it on the window-sill. It acts as
a burning-glass, concentrating the rays of the sun on the cardboard and
tissue-paper, all nicely prepared. Ten minutes later, it bursts into
flames. A splendid idea! And, like all great discoveries, it came quite
by chance, what? It reminds one of Newton's apple.... One day, the sun,
passing through the water in that bottle, must have set fire to a scrap of
cotton or the head of a match; and, as you had the sun at your disposal
just now, you said to yourself, 'Now's the time,' and stood the bottle in
the right position. My congratulations, Gaston!... Look, here's a sheet of
paper. Write down: 'It was I who murdered M. Guillaume.' Write, I tell
you!"

Leaning over the young man, with all his implacable force of will he
compelled him to write, guiding his hand and dictating the sentences.
Dutreuil, exhausted, at the end of his strength, wrote as he was told.

"Here's the confession, Mr. Chief-inspector," said Renine. "You will be
good enough to take it to M. Dudouis. These gentlemen," turning to the
waiters, from the restaurant, "will, I am sure, consent to serve as
witnesses."

And, seeing that Dutreuil, overwhelmed by what had happened, did not move,
he gave him a shake:

"Hi, you, look alive! Now that you've been fool enough to confess, make an
end of the job, my gentle idiot!"

The other watched him, standing in front of him.

"Obviously," Renine continued, "you're only a simpleton. The hat-box was
fairly burnt to ashes: so were the notes. That hat-box, my dear fellow, is
a different one; and those notes belong to me. I even burnt six of them to
make you swallow the stunt. And you couldn't make out what had happened.
What an owl you must be! To furnish me with evidence at the last moment,
when I hadn't a single proof of my own! And such evidence! A written
confession! Written before witnesses!... Look here, my man, if they do cut
off your head--as I sincerely hope they will--upon my word, you'll have
jolly well deserved it! Good-bye, Dutreuil!"

* * * * *

Downstairs, in the street, Renine asked Hortense Daniel to take the car, go
to Madeleine Aubrieux and tell her what had happened.

"And you?" asked Hortense.

"I have a lot to do ... urgent appointments...."

"And you deny yourself the pleasure of bringing the good news?"

"It's one of the pleasures that pall upon one. The only pleasure that never
flags is that of the fight itself. Afterwards, things cease to be
interesting."

She took his hand and for a moment held it in both her own. She would have
liked to express all her admiration to that strange man, who seemed to
do good as a sort of game and who did it with something like genius. But
she was unable to speak. All these rapid incidents had upset her. Emotion
constricted her throat and brought the tears to her eyes.

Renine bowed his head, saying:

"Thank you. I have my reward."

III

THE CASE OF JEAN LOUIS

"Monsieur," continued the young girl, addressing Serge Renine, "it was
while I was spending the Easter holidays at Nice with my father that I made
the acquaintance of Jean Louis d'Imbleval...."

Renine interrupted her:

"Excuse me, mademoiselle, but just now you spoke of this young man as Jean
Louis Vaurois."

"That's his name also," she said.

"Has he two names then?"

"I don't know ... I don't know anything about it," she said, with some
embarrassment, "and that is why, by Hortense's advice, I came to ask for
your help."

This conversation was taking place in Renine's flat on the Boulevard
Haussmann, to which Hortense had brought her friend Genevieve Aymard, a
slender, pretty little creature with a face over-shadowed by an expression
of the greatest melancholy.

"Renine will be successful, take my word for it, Genevieve. You will,
Renine, won't you?"

"Please tell me the rest of the story, mademoiselle," he said.

Genevieve continued:

"I was already engaged at the time to a man whom I loathe and detest. My
father was trying to force me to marry him and is still trying to do so.
Jean Louis and I felt the keenest sympathy for each other, a sympathy that
soon developed into a profound and passionate affection which, I can assure
you, was equally sincere on both sides. On my return to Paris, Jean Louis,
who lives in the country with his mother and his aunt, took rooms in our
part of the town; and, as I am allowed to go out by myself, we used to see
each other daily. I need not tell you that we were engaged to be married. I
told my father so. And this is what he said: 'I don't particularly like the
fellow. But, whether it's he or another, what I want is that you should get
married. So let him come and ask for your hand. If not, you must do as I
say.' In the middle of June, Jean Louis went home to arrange matters with
his mother and aunt. I received some passionate letters; and then just
these few words:

'There are too many obstacles in the way of our happiness. I give up.
I am mad with despair. I love you more than ever. Good-bye and forgive
me.'

"Since then, I have received nothing: no reply to my letters and
telegrams."

"Perhaps he has fallen in love with somebody else?" asked Renine. "Or there
may be some old connection which he is unable to shake off."

Genevieve shook her head:

"Monsieur, believe me, if our engagement had been broken off for an
ordinary reason, I should not have allowed Hortense to trouble you. But it
is something quite different, I am absolutely convinced. There's a mystery
in Jean Louis' life, or rather an endless number of mysteries which hamper
and pursue him. I never saw such distress in a human face; and, from
the first moment of our meeting, I was conscious in him of a grief and
melancholy which have always persisted, even at times when he was giving
himself to our love with the greatest confidence."

"But your impression must have been confirmed by minor details, by things
which happened to strike you as peculiar?"

"I don't quite know what to say."

"These two names, for instance?"

"Yes, there was certainly that."

"By what name did he introduce himself to you?"

"Jean Louis d'Imbleval."

"But Jean Louis Vaurois?"

"That's what my father calls him."

"Why?"

"Because that was how he was introduced to my father, at Nice, by a
gentleman who knew him. Besides, he carries visiting-cards which describe
him under either name."

"Have you never questioned him on this point?"

"Yes, I have, twice. The first time, he said that his aunt's name was
Vaurois and his mother's d'Imbleval."

"And the second time?"

"He told me the contrary: he spoke of his mother as Vaurois and of his aunt
as d'Imbleval. I pointed this out. He coloured up and I thought it better
not to question him any further."

"Does he live far from Paris?"

"Right down in Brittany: at the Manoir d'Elseven, five miles from Carhaix."

Renine rose and asked the girl, seriously:

"Are you quite certain that he loves you, mademoiselle?"

"I am certain of it and I know too that he represents all my life and all
my happiness. He alone can save me. If he can't, then I shall be married
in a week's time to a man whom I hate. I have promised my father; and the
banns have been published."

"We shall leave for Carhaix, Madame Daniel and I, this evening," said
Renine.

That evening he and Hortense took the train for Brittany. They reached
Carhaix at ten o'clock in the morning; and, after lunch, at half past
twelve o'clock they stepped into a car borrowed from a leading resident of
the district.

"You're looking a little pale, my dear," said Renine, with a laugh, as they
alighted by the gate of the garden at Elseven.

"I'm very fond of Genevieve," she said. "She's the only friend I have. And
I'm feeling frightened."

He called her attention to the fact that the central gate was flanked by
two wickets bearing the names of Madame d'Imbleval and Madame Vaurois
respectively. Each of these wickets opened on a narrow path which ran among
the shrubberies of box and aucuba to the left and right of the main avenue.
The avenue itself led to an old manor-house, long, low and picturesque, but
provided with two clumsily-built, ugly wings, each in a different style of
architecture and each forming the destination of one of the side-paths.
Madame d'Imbleval evidently lived on the left and Madame Vaurois on the
right.

Hortense and Renine listened. Shrill, hasty voices were disputing inside
the house. The sound came through one of the windows of the ground-floor,
which was level with the garden and covered throughout its length with red
creepers and white roses.

"We can't go any farther," said Hortense. "It would be indiscreet."

"All the more reason," whispered Renine. "Look here: if we walk straight
ahead, we shan't be seen by the people who are quarrelling."

The sounds of conflict were by no means abating; and, when they reached the
window next to the front-door, through the roses and creepers they could
both see and hear two old ladies shrieking at the tops of their voices and
shaking their fists at each other.

The women were standing in the foreground, in a large dining-room where
the table was not yet cleared; and at the farther side of the table sat a
young man, doubtless Jean Louis himself, smoking his pipe and reading a
newspaper, without appearing to trouble about the two old harridans.

One of these, a thin, tall woman, was wearing a purple silk dress; and her
hair was dressed in a mass of curls much too yellow for the ravaged face
around which they tumbled. The other, who was still thinner, but quite
short, was bustling round the room in a cotton dressing-gown and displayed
a red, painted face blazing with anger:

"A baggage, that's what you are!" she yelped. "The wickedest woman in the
world and a thief into the bargain!"

"I, a thief!" screamed the other.

"What about that business with the ducks at ten francs apiece: don't you
call that thieving?"

"Hold your tongue, you low creature! Who stole the fifty-franc note from my
dressing-table? Lord, that I should have to live with such a wretch!"

The other started with fury at the outrage and, addressing the young man,
cried:

"Jean, are you going to sit there and let me be insulted by your hussy of a
d'Imbleval?"

And the tall one retorted, furiously:

"Hussy! Do you hear that, Louis? Look at her, your Vaurois! She's got the
airs of a superannuated barmaid! Make her stop, can't you?"

Suddenly Jean Louis banged his fist upon the table, making the plates and
dishes jump, and shouted:

"Be quiet, both of you, you old lunatics!"

They turned upon him at once and loaded him with abuse:

"Coward!... Hypocrite!... Liar!... A pretty sort of son you are!... The son
of a slut and not much better yourself!..."

The insults rained down upon him. He stopped his ears with his fingers and
writhed as he sat at table like a man who has lost all patience and has
need to restrain himself lest he should fall upon his enemy.

Renine whispered:

"Now's the time to go in."

"In among all those infuriated people?" protested Hortense.

"Exactly. We shall see them better with their masks off."

And, with a determined step, he walked to the door, opened it and entered
the room, followed by Hortense.

His advent gave rise to a feeling of stupefaction. The two women stopped
yelling, but were still scarlet in the face and trembling with rage. Jean
Louis, who was very pale, stood up.

Profiting by the general confusion, Renine said briskly:

"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Prince Renine. This is Madame Daniel.
We are friends of Mlle. Genevieve Aymard and we have come in her name. I
have a letter from her addressed to you, monsieur."

Jean Louis, already disconcerted by the newcomers' arrival, lost
countenance entirely on hearing the name of Genevieve. Without quite
knowing what he was saying and with the intention of responding to Renine's
courteous behaviour, he tried in his turn to introduce the two ladies and
let fall the astounding words:

"My mother, Madame d'Imbleval; my mother, Madame Vaurois."

For some time no one spoke. Renine bowed. Hortense did not know with whom
she should shake hands, with Madame d'Imbleval, the mother, or with Madame
Vaurois, the mother. But what happened was that Madame d'Imbleval and
Madame Vaurois both at the same time attempted to snatch the letter which
Renine was holding out to Jean Louis, while both at the same time mumbled:

"Mlle. Aymard!... She has had the coolness ... she has had the
audacity...!"

Then Jean Louis, recovering his self-possession, laid hold of his mother
d'Imbleval and pushed her out of the room by a door on the left and next of
his mother Vaurois and pushed her out of the room by a door on the right.
Then, returning to his two visitors, he opened the envelope and read, in an
undertone:

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