The Eight Strokes of the Clock by Maurice Le Blanc

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"What do you mean?"

"Why, if she had given her explanations with too much detail, we should
have ended by doubting what she was telling us."

"By doubting it?"

"Well, hang it all, the story is a trifle far-fetched! That fellow arriving
at night, with a live baby in his pocket, and going away with a dead one:
the thing hardly holds water. But you see, my dear, I hadn't much time to
coach the unfortunate woman in her part."

Hortense stared at him in amazement:

"What on earth do you mean?"

"Well, you know how dull-witted these countrywomen are. And she and I
had no time to spare. So we worked out a little scene in a hurry ... and
she really didn't act it so badly. It was all in the right key: terror,
_tremolo_, tears...."

"Is it possible?" murmured Hortense. "Is it possible? You had seen her
beforehand?"

"I had to, of course."

"But when?"

"This morning, when we arrived. While you were titivating yourself at
the hotel at Carhaix, I was running round to see what information I
could pick up. As you may imagine, everybody in the district knows the
d'Imbleval-Vaurois story. I was at once directed to the former midwife,
Mlle. Boussignol. With Mlle. Boussignol it did not take long. Three minutes
to settle a new version of what had happened and ten thousand francs to
induce her to repeat that ... more or less credible ... version to the
people at the manor-house."

"A quite incredible version!"

"Not so bad as all that, my child, seeing that you believed it ... and
the others too. And that was the essential thing. What I had to do was to
demolish at one blow a truth which had been twenty-seven years in existence
and which was all the more firmly established because it was founded on
actual facts. That was why I went for it with all my might and attacked it
by sheer force of eloquence. Impossible to identify the children? I deny
it. Inevitable confusion? It's not true. 'You're all three,' I say, 'the
victims of something which I don't know but which it is your duty to clear
up!' 'That's easily done,' says Jean Louis, whose conviction is at once
shaken. 'Let's send for Mlle. Boussignol.' 'Right! Let's send for her.'
Whereupon Mlle. Boussignol arrives and mumbles out the little speech which
I have taught her. Sensation! General stupefaction ... of which I take
advantage to carry off our young man!"

Hortense shook her head:

"But they'll get over it, all three of them, on thinking!"

"Never! Never! They will have their doubts, perhaps. But they will
never consent to feel certain! They will never agree to think! Use your
imagination! Here are three people whom I have rescued from the hell in
which they have been floundering for a quarter of a century. Do you think
they're going back to it? Here are three people who, from weakness or a
false sense of duty, had not the courage to escape. Do you think that they
won't cling like grim death to the liberty which I'm giving them? Nonsense!
Why, they would have swallowed a hoax twice as difficult to digest as that
which Mlle. Boussignol dished up for them! After all, my version was no
more absurd than the truth. On the contrary. And they swallowed it whole!
Look at this: before we left, I heard Madame d'Imbleval and Madame Vaurois
speak of an immediate removal. They were already becoming quite
affectionate at the thought of seeing the last of each other."

"But what about Jean Louis?"

"Jean Louis? Why, he was fed up with his two mothers! By Jingo, one can't
do with two mothers in a life-time! What a situation! And when one has the
luck to be able to choose between having two mothers or none at all, why,
bless me, one doesn't hesitate! And, besides, Jean Louis is in love with
Genevieve." He laughed. "And he loves her well enough, I hope and trust,
not to inflict two mothers-in-law upon her! Come, you may be easy in your
mind. Your friend's happiness is assured; and that is all you asked for.
All that matters is the object which we achieve and not the more or less
peculiar nature of the methods which we employ. And, if some adventures
are wound up and some mysteries elucidated by looking for and finding
cigarette-ends, or incendiary water-bottles and blazing hat-boxes as on our
last expedition, others call for psychology and for purely psychological
solutions. I have spoken. And I charge you to be silent."

"Silent?"

"Yes, there's a man and woman sitting behind us who seem to be saying
something uncommonly interesting."

"But they're talking in whispers."

"Just so. When people talk in whispers, it's always about something shady."

He lit a cigarette and sat back in his chair. Hortense listened, but in
vain. As for him, he was emitting little slow puffs of smoke.

Fifteen minutes later, the train stopped and the man and woman got out.

"Pity," said Renine, "that I don't know their names or where they're going.
But I know where to find them. My dear, we have a new adventure before us."

Hortense protested:

"Oh, no, please, not yet!... Give me a little rest!... And oughtn't we to
think of Genevieve?"

He seemed greatly surprised:

"Why, all that's over and done with! Do you mean to say you want to waste
any more time over that old story? Well, I for my part confess that I've
lost all interest in the man with the two mammas."

And this was said in such a comical tone and with such diverting sincerity
that Hortense was once more seized with a fit of giggling. Laughter alone
was able to relax her exasperated nerves and to distract her from so many
contradictory emotions.

IV

THE TELL-TALE FILM

"Do look at the man who's playing the butler," said Serge Renine.

"What is there peculiar about him?" asked Hortense.

They were sitting in the balcony at a picture-palace, to which Hortense had
asked to be taken so that she might see on the screen the daughter of a
lady, now dead, who used to give her piano-lessons. Rose Andree, a lovely
girl with lissome movements and a smiling face, was that evening figuring
in a new film, _The Happy Princess_, which she lit up with her high
spirits and her warm, glowing beauty.

Renine made no direct reply, but, during a pause in the performance,
continued:

"I sometimes console myself for an indifferent film by watching the
subordinate characters. It seems to me that those poor devils, who are made
to rehearse certain scenes ten or twenty times over, must often be thinking
of other things than their parts at the time of the final exposure. And
it's great fun noting those little moments of distraction which reveal
something of their temperament, of their instinct self. As, for instance,
in the case of that butler: look!"

The screen now showed a luxuriously served table. The Happy Princess sat at
the head, surrounded by all her suitors. Half-a-dozen footmen moved about
the room, under the orders of the butler, a big fellow with a dull, coarse
face, a common appearance and a pair of enormous eyebrows which met across
his forehead in a single line.

"He looks a brute," said Hortense, "but what do you see in him that's
peculiar?"

"Just note how he gazes at the princess and tell me if he doesn't stare at
her oftener than he ought to."

"I really haven't noticed anything, so far," said Hortense.

"Why, of course he does!" Serge Renine declared. "It is quite obvious that
in actual life he entertains for Rose Andree personal feelings which are
quite out of place in a nameless servant. It is possible that, in real
life, no one has any idea of such a thing; but, on the screen, when he is
not watching himself, or when he thinks that the actors at rehearsal cannot
see him, his secret escapes him. Look...."

The man was standing still. It was the end of dinner. The princess was
drinking a glass of champagne and he was gloating over her with his
glittering eyes half-hidden behind their heavy lids.

Twice again they surprised in his face those strange expressions to which
Renine ascribed an emotional meaning which Hortense refused to see:

"It's just his way of looking at people," she said.

The first part of the film ended. There were two parts, divided by an
_entr'acte_. The notice on the programme stated that "a year had
elapsed and that the Happy Princess was living in a pretty Norman cottage,
all hung with creepers, together with her husband, a poor musician."

The princess was still happy, as was evident on the screen, still as
attractive as ever and still besieged by the greatest variety of suitors.
Nobles and commoners, peasants and financiers, men of all kinds fell
swooning at her feet; and prominent among them was a sort of boorish
solitary, a shaggy, half-wild woodcutter, whom she met whenever she went
out for a walk. Armed with his axe, a formidable, crafty being, he prowled
around the cottage; and the spectators felt with a sense of dismay that a
peril was hanging over the Happy Princess' head.

"Look at that!" whispered Renine. "Do you realise who the man of the woods
is?"

"No."

"Simply the butler. The same actor is doubling the two parts."

In fact, notwithstanding the new figure which he cut, the butler's
movements and postures were apparent under the heavy gait and rounded
shoulders of the woodcutter, even as under the unkempt beard and long,
thick hair the once clean-shaven face was visible with the cruel expression
and the bushy line of the eyebrows.

The princess, in the background, was seen to emerge from the thatched
cottage. The man hid himself behind a clump of trees. From time to time,
the screen displayed, on an enormously enlarged scale, his fiercely rolling
eyes or his murderous hands with their huge thumbs.

"The man frightens me," said Hortense. "He is really terrifying."

"Because he's acting on his own account," said Renine. "You must understand
that, in the space of three or four months that appears to separate the
dates at which the two films were made, his passion has made progress; and
to him it is not the princess who is coming but Rose Andree."

The man crouched low. The victim approached, gaily and unsuspectingly. She
passed, heard a sound, stopped and looked about her with a smiling air
which became attentive, then uneasy, and then more and more anxious. The
woodcutter had pushed aside the branches and was coming through the copse.

They were now standing face to face. He opened his arms as though to seize
her. She tried to scream, to call out for help; but the arms closed around
her before she could offer the slightest resistance. Then he threw her over
his shoulder and began to run.

"Are you satisfied?" whispered Renine. "Do you think that this fourth-rate
actor would have had all that strength and energy if it had been any other
woman than Rose Andree?"

Meanwhile the woodcutter was crossing the skirt of a forest and plunging
through great trees and masses of rocks. After setting the princess down,
he cleared the entrance to a cave which the daylight entered by a slanting
crevice.

A succession of views displayed the husband's despair, the search and the
discovery of some small branches which had been broken by the princess
and which showed the path that had been taken. Then came the final scene,
with the terrible struggle between the man and the woman when the woman,
vanquished and exhausted, is flung to the ground, the sudden arrival of the
husband and the shot that puts an end to the brute's life....

* * * * *

"Well," said Renine, when they had left the picture-palace--and he
spoke with a certain gravity--"I maintain that the daughter of your old
piano-teacher has been in danger ever since the day when that last scene
was filmed. I maintain that this scene represents not so much an assault by
the man of the woods on the Happy Princess as a violent and frantic attack
by an actor on the woman he desires. Certainly it all happened within the
bounds prescribed by the part and nobody saw anything in it--nobody except
perhaps Rose Andree herself--but I, for my part, have detected flashes
of passion which leave not a doubt in my mind. I have seen glances that
betrayed the wish and even the intention to commit murder. I have seen
clenched hands, ready to strangle, in short, a score of details which prove
to me that, at that time, the man's instinct was urging him to kill the
woman who could never be his."

"And it all amounts to what?"

"We must protect Rose Andree if she is still in danger and if it is not too
late."

"And to do this?"

"We must get hold of further information."

"From whom?"

"From the World's Cinema Company, which made the film. I will go to them
to-morrow morning. Will you wait for me in your flat about lunch-time?"

At heart, Hortense was still sceptical. All these manifestations of
passion, of which she denied neither the ardour nor the ferocity, seemed
to her to be the rational behaviour of a good actor. She had seen nothing
of the terrible tragedy which Renine contended that he had divined; and
she wondered whether he was not erring through an excess of imagination.

"Well," she asked, next day, not without a touch of irony, "how far have
you got? Have you made a good bag? Anything mysterious? Anything
thrilling?"

"Pretty good."

"Oh, really? And your so-called lover...."

"Is one Dalbreque, originally a scene-painter, who played the butler in the
first part of the film and the man of the woods in the second and was so
much appreciated that they engaged him for a new film. Consequently, he has
been acting lately. He was acting near Paris. But, on the morning of Friday
the 18th of September, he broke into the garage of the World's Cinema
Company and made off with a magnificent car and forty thousand francs
in money. Information was lodged with the police; and on the Sunday the
car was found a little way outside Dreux. And up to now the enquiry has
revealed two things, which will appear in the papers to-morrow: first,
Dalbreque is alleged to have committed a murder which created a great stir
last year, the murder of Bourguet, the jeweller; secondly, on the day after
his two robberies, Dalbreque was driving through Le Havre in a motor-car
with two men who helped him to carry off, in broad daylight and in a
crowded street, a lady whose identity has not yet been discovered."

"Rose Andree?" asked Hortense, uneasily.

"I have just been to Rose Andree's: the World's Cinema Company gave me her
address. Rose Andree spent this summer travelling and then stayed for a
fortnight in the Seine-inferieure, where she has a small place of her own,
the actual cottage in _The Happy Princess_. On receiving an invitation
from America to do a film there, she came back to Paris, registered her
luggage at the Gare Saint-Lazare and left on Friday the 18th of September,
intending to sleep at Le Havre and take Saturday's boat."

"Friday the 18th," muttered Hortense, "the same day on which that man...."

"And it was on the Saturday that a woman was carried off by him at
Le Havre. I looked in at the Compagnie Transatlantique and a brief
investigation showed that Rose Andree had booked a cabin but that the
cabin remained unoccupied. The passenger did not turn up."

"This is frightful. She has been carried off. You were right."

"I fear so."

"What have you decided to do?"

"Adolphe, my chauffeur, is outside with the car. Let us go to Le Havre. Up
to the present, Rose Andree's disappearance does not seem to have become
known. Before it does and before the police identify the woman carried off
by Dalbreque with the woman who did not turn up to claim her cabin, we will
get on Rose Andree's track."

There was not much said on the journey. At four o'clock Hortense and Renine
reached Rouen. But here Renine changed his road.

"Adolphe, take the left bank of the Seine."

He unfolded a motoring-map on his knees and, tracing the route with his
finger, showed Hortense that, if you draw a line from Le Havre, or rather
from Quillebeuf, where the road crosses the Seine, to Dreux, where the
stolen car was found, this line passes through Routot, a market-town lying
west of the forest of Brotonne:

"Now it was in the forest of Brotonne," he continued, "according to what I
heard, that the second part of _The Happy Princess_ was filmed. And
the question that arises is this: having got hold of Rose Andree, would it
not occur to Dalbreque, when passing near the forest on the Saturday night,
to hide his prey there, while his two accomplices went on to Dreux and from
there returned to Paris? The cave was quite near. Was he not bound to go to
it? How should he do otherwise? Wasn't it while running to this cave, a few
months ago, that he held in his arms, against his breast, within reach of
his lips, the woman whom he loved and whom he has now conquered? By every
rule of fate and logic, the adventure is being repeated all over again ...
but this time in reality. Rose Andree is a captive. There is no hope
of rescue. The forest is vast and lonely. That night, or on one of the
following nights, Rose Andree must surrender ... or die."

Hortense gave a shudder:

"We shall be too late. Besides, you don't suppose that he's keeping her a
prisoner?"

"Certainly not. The place I have in mind is at a cross-roads and is not a
safe retreat. But we may discover some clue or other."

The shades of night were falling from the tall trees when they entered the
ancient forest of Brotonne, full of Roman remains and mediaeval relics.
Renine knew the forest well and remembered that near a famous oak, known
as the Wine-cask, there was a cave which must be the cave of the Happy
Princess. He found it easily, switched on his electric torch, rummaged in
the dark corners and brought Hortense back to the entrance:

"There's nothing inside," he said, "but here is the evidence which I was
looking for. Dalbreque was obsessed by the recollection of the film, but so
was Rose Andree. The Happy Princess had broken off the tips of the branches
on the way through the forest. Rose Andree has managed to break off some to
the right of this opening, in the hope that she would be discovered as on
the first occasion."

"Yes," said Hortense, "it's a proof that she has been here; but the proof
is three weeks old. Since that time...."

"Since that time, she is either dead and buried under a heap of leaves or
else alive in some hole even lonelier than this."

"If so, where is he?"

Renine pricked up his ears. Repeated blows of the axe were sounding from
some distance, no doubt coming from a part of the forest that was being
cleared.

"He?" said Renine, "I wonder whether he may not have continued to behave
under the influence of the film and whether the man of the woods in _The
Happy Princess_ has not quite naturally resumed his calling. For how is
the man to live, to obtain his food, without attracting attention? He will
have found a job."

"We can't make sure of that."

"We might, by questioning the woodcutters whom we can hear."

The car took them by a forest-road to another cross-roads where they
entered on foot a track which was deeply rutted by waggon-wheels. The sound
of axes ceased. After walking for a quarter of an hour, they met a dozen
men who, having finished work for the day, were returning to the villages
near by.

"Will this path take us to Routot?" ask Renine, in order to open a
conversation with them.

"No, you're turning your backs on it," said one of the men, gruffly.

And he went on, accompanied by his mates.

Hortense and Renine stood rooted to the spot. They had recognized the
butler. His cheeks and chin were shaved, but his upper lip was covered by
a black moustache, evidently dyed. The eyebrows no longer met and were
reduced to normal dimensions.

* * * * *

Thus, in less than twenty hours, acting on the vague hints supplied by the
bearing of a film-actor, Serge Renine had touched the very heart of the
tragedy by means of purely psychological arguments.

"Rose Andree is alive," he said. "Otherwise Dalbreque would have left the
country. The poor thing must be imprisoned and bound up; and he takes her
some food at night."

"We will save her, won't we?"

"Certainly, by keeping a watch on him and, if necessary, but in the last
resort, compelling him by force to give up his secret."

They followed the woodcutter at a distance and, on the pretext that the car
needed overhauling, engaged rooms in the principal inn at Routot.

Attached to the inn was a small cafe from which they were separated by the
entrance to the yard and above which were two rooms, reached by a wooden
outer staircase, at one side. Dalbreque occupied one of these rooms and
Renine took the other for his chauffeur.

Next morning he learnt from Adolphe that Dalbreque, on the previous
evening, after all the lights were out, had carried down a bicycle from his
room and mounted it and had not returned until shortly before sunrise.

The bicycle tracks led Renine to the uninhabited Chateau des Landes, five
miles from the village. They disappeared in a rocky path which ran beside
the park down to the Seine, opposite the Jumieges peninsula.

Next night, he took up his position there. At eleven o'clock, Dalbreque
climbed a bank, scrambled over a wire fence, hid his bicycle under the
branches and moved away. It seemed impossible to follow him in the pitchy
darkness, on a mossy soil that muffled the sound of footsteps. Renine did
not make the attempt; but, at daybreak, he came with his chauffeur and
hunted through the park all the morning. Though the park, which covered
the side of a hill and was bounded below by the river, was not very large,
he found no clue which gave him any reason to suppose that Rose Andree was
imprisoned there.

He therefore went back to the village, with the firm intention of taking
action that evening and employing force:

"This state of things cannot go on," he said to Hortense. "I must rescue
Rose Andree at all costs and save her from that ruffian's clutches. He must
be made to speak. He must. Otherwise there's a danger that we may be too
late."

That day was Sunday; and Dalbreque did not go to work. He did not leave his
room except for lunch and went upstairs again immediately afterwards. But
at three o'clock Renine and Hortense, who were keeping a watch on him from
the inn, saw him come down the wooden staircase, with his bicycle on his
shoulder. Leaning it against the bottom step, he inflated the tires and
fastened to the handle-bar a rather bulky object wrapped in a newspaper.

"By Jove!" muttered Renine.

"What's the matter?"

In front of the cafe was a small terrace bordered on the right and left by
spindle-trees planted in boxes, which were connected by a paling. Behind
the shrubs, sitting on a bank but stooping forward so that they could see
Dalbreque through the branches, were four men.

"Police!" said Renine. "What bad luck! If those fellows take a hand, they
will spoil everything."

"Why? On the contrary, I should have thought...."

"Yes, they will. They will put Dalbreque out of the way ... and then? Will
that give us Rose Andree?"

Dalbreque had finished his preparations. Just as he was mounting his
bicycle, the detectives rose in a body, ready to make a dash for him. But
Dalbreque, though quite unconscious of their presence, changed his mind and
went back to his room as though he had forgotten something.

"Now's the time!" said Renine. "I'm going to risk it. But it's a difficult
situation and I've no great hopes."

He went out into the yard and, at a moment when the detectives were not
looking, ran up the staircase, as was only natural if he wished to give an
order to his chauffeur. But he had no sooner reached the rustic balcony at
the back of the house, which gave admission to the two bedrooms than he
stopped. Dalbreque's door was open. Renine walked in.

Dalbreque stepped back, at once assuming the defensive:

"What do you want? Who said you could...."

"Silence!" whispered Renine, with an imperious gesture. "It's all up with
you!"

"What are you talking about?" growled the man, angrily.

"Lean out of your window. There are four men below on the watch for you to
leave, four detectives."

Dalbreque leant over the terrace and muttered an oath:

"On the watch for me?" he said, turning round. "What do I care?"

"They have a warrant."

He folded his arms:

"Shut up with your piffle! A warrant! What's that to me?"

"Listen," said Renine, "and let us waste no time. It's urgent. Your name's
Dalbreque, or, at least, that's the name under which you acted in _The
Happy Princess_ and under which the police are looking for you as being
the murderer of Bourguet the jeweller, the man who stole a motor-car and
forty thousand francs from the World's Cinema Company and the man who
abducted a woman at Le Havre. All this is known and proved ... and here's
the upshot. Four men downstairs. Myself here, my chauffeur in the next
room. You're done for. Do you want me to save you?"

Dalbreque gave his adversary a long look:

"Who are you?"

"A friend of Rose Andree's," said Renine.

The other started and, to some extent dropping his mask, retorted:

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