The Eight Strokes of the Clock by Maurice Le Blanc

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"I was a friend of Jacques d'Ormeval."

"Only a friend?"

She was a little taken aback, but at once pulled herself together and
replied:

"I was his friend and it is my duty to avenge his death."

"Nevertheless, you will remain silent, as he did."

"He did not know, when he died."

"That's where you are wrong. He could have accused his wife, if he had
wished. He had ample time to accuse her; and he said nothing."

"Why?"

"Because of his children."

Madame Astaing was not appeased; and her attitude displayed the same
longing for revenge and the same detestation. But she was influenced by
Renine in spite of herself. In the small, closed room, where there was
such a clash of hatred, he was gradually becoming the master; and Germaine
Astaing understood that it was against him that she had to struggle, while
Madame d'Ormeval felt all the comfort of that unexpected support which was
offering itself on the brink of the abyss:

"Thank you, monsieur," she said. "As you have seen all this so clearly, you
also know that it was for my children's sake that I did not give myself up.
But for that ... I am so tired ...!"

And so the scene was changing and things assuming a different aspect.
Thanks to a few words let fall in the midst of the dispute, the culprit was
lifting her head and taking heart, whereas her accuser was hesitating and
seemed to be uneasy. And it also came about that the accuser dared not say
anything further and that the culprit was nearing the moment at which the
need is felt of breaking silence and of speaking, quite naturally, words
that are at once a confession and a relief.

"The time, I think, has come," said Renine to Therese, with the same
unvarying gentleness, "when you can and ought to explain yourself."

She was again weeping, lying huddled in a chair. She too revealed a face
aged and ravaged by sorrow; and, in a very low voice, with no display of
anger, she spoke, in short, broken sentences:

"She has been his mistress for the last four years.... I can't tell you how
I suffered.... She herself told me of it ... out of sheer wickedness ...
Her loathing for me was even greater than her love for Jacques ... and
every day I had some fresh injury to bear ... She would ring me up to tell
me of her appointments with my husband ... she hoped to make me suffer so
much I should end by killing myself.... I did think of it sometimes, but I
held out, for the children's sake ... Jacques was weakening. She wanted him
to get a divorce ... and little by little he began to consent ... dominated
by her and by her brother, who is slyer than she is, but quite as dangerous
... I felt all this ... Jacques was becoming harsh to me.... He had not the
courage to leave me, but I was the obstacle and he bore me a grudge....
Heavens, the tortures I suffered!..."

"You should have given him his liberty," cried Germaine Astaing. "A woman
doesn't kill her husband for wanting a divorce."

Therese shook her head and answered:

"I did not kill him because he wanted a divorce. If he had really wanted
it, he would have left me; and what could I have done? But your plans had
changed, Germaine; divorce was not enough for you; and it was something
else that you would have obtained from him, another, much more serious
thing which you and your brother had insisted on ... and to which he had
consented ... out of cowardice ... in spite of himself...."

"What do you mean?" spluttered Germaine. "What other thing?"

"My death."

"You lie!" cried Madame Astaing.

Therese did not raise her voice. She made not a movement of aversion or
indignation and simply repeated:

"My death, Germaine. I have read your latest letters, six letters from you
which he was foolish enough to leave about in his pocket-book and which I
read last night, six letters in which the terrible word is not set down,
but in which it appears between every line. I trembled as I read it! That
Jacques should come to this!... Nevertheless the idea of stabbing him did
not occur to me for a second. A woman like myself, Germaine, does not
readily commit murder.... If I lost my head, it was after that ... and it
was your fault...."

She turned her eyes to Renine as if to ask him if there was no danger in
her speaking and revealing the truth.

"Don't be afraid," he said. "I will be answerable for everything."

She drew her hand across her forehead. The horrible scene was being
reenacted within her and was torturing her. Germaine Astaing did not move,
but stood with folded arms and anxious eyes, while Hortense Daniel sat
distractedly awaiting the confession of the crime and the explanation of
the unfathomable mystery.

"It was after that and it was through your fault Germaine ... I had put
back the pocket-book in the drawer where it was hidden; and I said nothing
to Jacques this morning ... I did not want to tell him what I knew....
It was too horrible.... All the same, I had to act quickly; your letters
announced your secret arrival to-day.... I thought at first of running
away, of taking the train.... I had mechanically picked up that dagger,
to defend myself.... But when Jacques and I went down to the beach, I was
resigned.... Yes, I had accepted death: 'I will die,' I thought, 'and put
an end to all this nightmare!'... Only, for the children's sake, I was
anxious that my death should look like an accident and that Jacques should
have no part in it. That was why your plan of a walk on the cliff suited
me.... A fall from the top of a cliff seems quite natural ... Jacques
therefore left me to go to his cabin, from which he was to join you later
at the Trois Mathildes. On the way, below the terrace, he dropped the key
of the cabin. I went down and began to look for it with him ... And it
happened then ... through your fault ... yes, Germaine, through your fault
... Jacques' pocket-book had slipped from his jacket, without his noticing
it, and, together with the pocket-book, a photograph which I recognized
at once: a photograph, taken this year, of myself and my two children. I
picked it up ... and I saw.... You know what I saw, Germaine. Instead of my
face, the face in the photograph was _yours_!... You had put in your
likeness, Germaine, and blotted me out! It was your face! One of your arms
was round my elder daughter's neck; and the younger was sitting on your
knees.... It was you, Germaine, the wife of my husband, the future mother
of my children, you, who were going to bring them up ... you, you! ... Then
I lost my head. I had the dagger ... Jacques was stooping ... I stabbed
him...."

Every word of her confession was strictly true. Those who listened to her
felt this profoundly; and nothing could have given Hortense and Renine a
keener impression of tragedy.

She had fallen back into her chair, utterly exhausted. Nevertheless, she
went on speaking unintelligible words; and it was only gradually by leaning
over her, that they were able to make out:

"I thought that there would be an outcry and that I should be arrested. But
no. It happened in such a way and under such conditions that no one had
seen anything. Further, Jacques had drawn himself up at the same time as
myself; and he actually did not fall. No, he did not fall! I had stabbed
him; and he remained standing! I saw him from the terrace, to which I had
returned. He had hung his jacket over his shoulders, evidently to hide his
wound, and he moved away without staggering ... or staggering so little
that I alone was able to perceive it. He even spoke to some friends who
were playing cards. Then he went to his cabin and disappeared.... In a few
moments, I came back indoors. I was persuaded that all of this was only a
bad dream ... that I had not killed him ... or that at the worst the wound
was a slight one. Jacques would come out again. I was certain of it.... I
watched from my balcony.... If I had thought for a moment that he needed
assistance, I should have flown to him.... But truly I didn't know ... I
didn't guess.... People speak of presentiments: there are no such things. I
was perfectly calm, just as one is after a nightmare of which the memory is
fading away.... No, I swear to you, I knew nothing ... until the moment..."

She interrupted herself, stifled by sobs.

Renine finished her sentence for her,

"Until the moment when they came and told you, I suppose?"

Therese stammered:

"Yes. It was not till then that I was conscious of what I had done ... and
I felt that I was going mad and that I should cry out to all those people,
'Why, it was I who did it! Don't search! Here is the dagger ... I am the
culprit!' Yes, I was going to say that, when suddenly I caught sight of
my poor Jacques.... They were carrying him along.... His face was very
peaceful, very gentle.... And, in his presence, I understood my duty, as he
had understood his.... He had kept silent, for the sake of the children.
I would be silent too. We were both guilty of the murder of which he was
the victim; and we must both do all we could to prevent the crime from
recoiling upon them.... He had seen this clearly in his dying agony. He
had had the amazing courage to keep his feet, to answer the people who
spoke to him and to lock himself up to die. He had done this, wiping out
all his faults with a single action, and in so doing had granted me his
forgiveness, because he was not accusing me ... and was ordering me to hold
my peace ... and to defend myself ... against everybody ... especially
against you, Germaine."

She uttered these last words more firmly. At first wholly overwhelmed by
the unconscious act which she had committed in killing her husband, she
had recovered her strength a little in thinking of what she had done and
in defending herself with such energy. Faced by the intriguing woman whose
hatred had driven both of them to death and crime, she clenched her fists,
ready for the struggle, all quivering with resolution.

Germaine Astaing did not flinch. She had listened without a word, with a
relentless expression which grew harder and harder as Therese's confessions
became precise. No emotion seemed to soften her and no remorse to penetrate
her being. At most, towards the end, her thin lips shaped themselves into a
faint smile. She was holding her prey in her clutches.

Slowly, with her eyes raised to a mirror, she adjusted her hat and powdered
her face. Then she walked to the door.

Therese darted forward:

"Where are you going?"

"Where I choose."

"To see the examining-magistrate?"

"Very likely."

"You sha'n't pass!"

"As you please. I'll wait for him here."

"And you'll tell him what?"

"Why, all that you've said, of course, all that you've been silly enough
to say. How could he doubt the story? You have explained it all to me so
fully."

Therese took her by the shoulders:

"Yes, but I'll explain other things to him at the same time, Germaine,
things that concern you. If I'm ruined, so shall you be."

"You can't touch me."

"I can expose you, show your letters."

"What letters?"

"Those in which my death was decided on."

"Lies, Therese! You know that famous plot exists only in your imagination.
Neither Jacques nor I wished for your death."

"You did, at any rate. Your letters condemn you."

"Lies! They were the letters of a friend to a friend."

"Letters of a mistress to her paramour."

"Prove it."

"They are there, in Jacques' pocket-book."

"No, they're not."

"What's that you say?"

"I say that those letters belonged to me. I've taken them back, or rather
my brother has."

"You've stolen them, you wretch! And you shall give them back again," cried
Therese, shaking her.

"I haven't them. My brother kept them. He has gone."

Therese staggered and stretched out her hands to Renine with an expression
of despair. Renine said:

"What she says is true. I watched the brother's proceedings while he was
feeling in your bag. He took out the pocket-book, looked through it with
his sister, came and put it back again and went off with the letters."

Renine paused and added,

"Or, at least, with five of them."

The two women moved closer to him. What did he intend to convey? If
Frederic Astaing had taken away only five letters, what had become of the
sixth?

"I suppose," said Renine, "that, when the pocket-book fell on the shingle,
that sixth letter slipped out at the same time as the photograph and that
M. d'Ormeval must have picked it up, for I found it in the pocket of his
blazer, which had been hung up near the bed. Here it is. It's signed
Germaine Astaing and it is quite enough to prove the writer's intentions
and the murderous counsels which she was pressing upon her lover."

Madame Astaing had turned grey in the face and was so much disconcerted
that she did not try to defend herself. Renine continued, addressing his
remarks to her:

"To my mind, madame, you are responsible for all that happened. Penniless,
no doubt, and at the end of your resources, you tried to profit by the
passion with which you inspired M. d'Ormeval in order to make him marry
you, in spite of all the obstacles, and to lay your hands upon his fortune.
I have proofs of this greed for money and these abominable calculations and
can supply them if need be. A few minutes after I had felt in the pocket of
that jacket, you did the same. I had removed the sixth letter, but had left
a slip of paper which you looked for eagerly and which also must have
dropped out of the pocket-book. It was an uncrossed cheque for a hundred
thousand francs, drawn by M. d'Ormeval in your brother's name ... just a
little wedding-present ... what we might call pin-money. Acting on your
instructions, your brother dashed off by motor to Le Havre to reach the
bank before four o'clock. I may as well tell you that he will not have
cashed the cheque, for I had a telephone-message sent to the bank to
announce the murder of M. d'Ormeval, which stops all payments. The upshot
of all this is that the police, if you persist in your schemes of revenge,
will have in their hands all the proofs that are wanted against you and
your brother. I might add, as an edifying piece of evidence, the story of
the conversation which I overheard between your brother and yourself in a
dining-car on the railway between Brest and Paris, a fortnight ago. But I
feel sure that you will not drive me to adopt these extreme measures and
that we understand each other. Isn't that so?"

Natures like Madame Astaing's, which are violent and headstrong so long as
a fight is possible and while a gleam of hope remains, are easily swayed in
defeat. Germaine was too intelligent not to grasp the fact that the least
attempt at resistance would be shattered by such an adversary as this. She
was in his hands. She could but yield.

She therefore did not indulge in any play-acting, nor in any demonstration
such as threats, outbursts of fury or hysterics. She bowed:

"We are agreed," she said. "What are your terms?"

"Go away. If ever you are called upon for your evidence, say that you know
nothing."

She walked away. At the door, she hesitated and then, between her teeth,
said:

"The cheque."

Renine looked at Madame d'Ormeval, who declared:

"Let her keep it. I would not touch that money."

* * * * *

When Renine had given Therese d'Ormeval precise instructions as to how she
was to behave at the enquiry and to answer the questions put to her, he
left the chalet, accompanied by Hortense Daniel.

On the beach below, the magistrate and the public prosecutor were
continuing their investigations, taking measurements, examining the
witnesses and generally laying their heads together.

"When I think," said Hortense, "that you have the dagger and M. d'Ormeval's
pocket-book on you!"

"And it strikes you as awfully dangerous, I suppose?" he said, laughing.
"It strikes _me_ as awfully comic."

"Aren't you afraid?"

"Of what?"

"That they may suspect something?"

"Lord, they won't suspect a thing! We shall tell those good people what
we saw and our evidence will only increase their perplexity, for we saw
nothing at all. For prudence sake we will stay a day or two, to see which
way the wind is blowing. But it's quite settled: they will never be able to
make head or tail of the matter."

"Nevertheless, _you_ guessed the secret and from the first. Why?"

"Because, instead of seeking difficulties where none exist, as people
generally do, I always put the question as it should be put; and the
solution comes quite naturally. A man goes to his cabin and locks himself
in. Half an hour later, he is found inside, dead. No one has gone in. What
has happened? To my mind there is only one answer. There is no need to
think about it. As the murder was not committed in the cabin, it must have
been committed beforehand and the man was already mortally wounded when
he entered his cabin. And forthwith the truth in this particular case
appeared to me. Madame d'Ormeval, who was to have been killed this evening,
forestalled her murderers and while her husband was stooping to the ground,
in a moment of frenzy stabbed him in the back. There was nothing left to do
but look for the reasons that prompted her action. When I knew them, I took
her part unreservedly. That's the whole story."

The day was beginning to wane. The blue of the sky was becoming darker and
the sea, even more peaceful than before.

"What are you thinking of?" asked Renine, after a moment.

"I am thinking," she said, "that if I too were the victim of some
machination, I should trust you whatever happened, trust you through and
against all. I know, as certainly as I know that I exist, that you would
save me, whatever the obstacles might be. There is no limit to the power
of your will."

He said, very softly:

"There is no limit to my wish to please you."

VI

THE LADY WITH THE HATCHET

One of the most incomprehensible incidents that preceded the great war
was certainly the one which was known as the episode of the lady with the
hatchet. The solution of the mystery was unknown and would never have
been known, had not circumstances in the cruellest fashion obliged Prince
Renine--or should I say, Arsene Lupin?--to take up the matter and had I not
been able to-day to tell the true story from the details supplied by him.

Let me recite the facts. In a space of eighteen months, five women
disappeared, five women of different stations in life, all between twenty
and thirty years of age and living in Paris or the Paris district.

I will give their names: Madame Ladoue, the wife of a doctor; Mlle. Ardant,
the daughter of a banker; Mlle. Covereau, a washer-woman of Courbevoie;
Mlle. Honorine Vernisset, a dressmaker; and Madame Grollinger, an artist.
These five women disappeared without the possibility of discovering a
single particular to explain why they had left their homes, why they did
not return to them, who had enticed them away, and where and how they were
detained.

Each of these women, a week after her departure, was found somewhere or
other in the western outskirts of Paris; and each time it was a dead body
that was found, the dead body of a woman who had been killed by a blow on
the head from a hatchet. And each time, not far from the woman, who was
firmly bound, her face covered with blood and her body emaciated by lack of
food, the marks of carriage-wheels proved that the corpse had been driven
to the spot.

The five murders were so much alike that there was only a single
investigation, embracing all the five enquiries and, for that matter,
leading to no result. A woman disappeared; a week later, to a day, her body
was discovered; and that was all. The bonds that fastened her were similar
in each case; so were the tracks left by the wheels; so were the blows of
the hatchet, all of which were struck vertically at the top and right in
the middle of the forehead.

The motive of the crime? The five women had been completely stripped of
their jewels, purses and other objects of value. But the robberies might
well have been attributed to marauders or any passersby, since the bodies
were lying in deserted spots. Were the authorities to believe in the
execution of a plan of revenge or of a plan intended to do away with the
series of persons mutually connected, persons, for instance, likely to
benefit by a future inheritance? Here again the same obscurity prevailed.
Theories were built up, only to be demolished forthwith by an examination
of the facts. Trails were followed and at once abandoned.

And suddenly there was a sensation. A woman engaged in sweeping the roads
picked up on the pavement a little note-book which she brought to the local
police-station. The leaves of this note-book were all blank, excepting
one, on which was written a list of the murdered women, with their names
set down in order of date and accompanied by three figures: Ladoue, 132;
Vernisset, 118; and so on.

Certainly no importance would have been attached to these entries, which
anybody might have written, since every one was acquainted with the
sinister list. But, instead of five names, it included six! Yes, below
the words "Grollinger, 128," there appeared "Williamson, 114." Did this
indicate a sixth murder?

The obviously English origin of the name limited the field of the
investigations, which did not in fact take long. It was ascertained that,
a fortnight ago, a Miss Hermione Williamson, a governess in a family at
Auteuil, had left her place to go back to England and that, since then, her
sisters, though she had written to tell them that she was coming over, had
heard no more of her.

A fresh enquiry was instituted. A postman found the body in the Meudon
woods. Miss Williamson's skull was split down the middle.

I need not describe the public excitement at this stage nor the shudder
of horror which passed through the crowd when it read this list, written
without a doubt in the murderer's own hand. What could be more frightful
than such a record, kept up to date like a careful tradesman's ledger:

"On such a day, I killed so-and-so; on such a day so-and-so!"

And the sum total was six dead bodies.

Against all expectation, the experts in handwriting had no difficulty in
agreeing and unanimously declared that the writing was "that of a woman, an
educated woman, possessing artistic tastes, imagination and an extremely
sensitive nature." The "lady with the hatchet," as the journalists
christened her, was decidedly no ordinary person; and scores of
newspaper-articles made a special study of her case, exposing her mental
condition and losing themselves in far-fetched explanations.

Nevertheless it was the writer of one of these articles, a young journalist
whose chance discovery made him the centre of public attention, who
supplied the one element of truth and shed upon the darkness the only ray
of light that was to penetrate it. In casting about for the meaning of the
figures which followed the six names, he had come to ask himself whether
those figures did not simply represent the number of the days separating
one crime from the next. All that he had to do was to check the dates. He
at once found that his theory was correct. Mlle. Vernisset had been carried
off one hundred and thirty-two days after Madame Ladoue; Mlle. Covereau one
hundred and eighteen days after Honorine Vernisset; and so on.

There was therefore no room for doubt; and the police had no choice but to
accept a solution which so precisely fitted the circumstances: the figures
corresponded with the intervals. There was no mistake in the records of the
lady with the hatchet.

But then one deduction became inevitable. Miss Williamson, the latest
victim, had been carried off on the 26th of June last, and her name was
followed by the figures 114: was it not to be presumed that a fresh crime
would be committed a hundred and fourteen days later, that is to say, on
the 18th of October? Was it not probable that the horrible business would
be repeated in accordance with the murderer's secret intentions? Were they
not bound to pursue to its logical conclusion the argument which ascribed
to the figures--to all the figures, to the last as well as to the
others--their value as eventual dates?

Now it was precisely this deduction which was drawn and was being weighed
and discussed during the few days that preceded the 18th of October,
when logic demanded the performance of yet another act of the abominable
tragedy. And it was only natural that, on the morning of that day, Prince
Renine and Hortense, when making an appointment by telephone for the
evening, should allude to the newspaper-articles which they had both been
reading:

"Look out!" said Renine, laughing. "If you meet the lady with the hatchet,
take the other side of the road!"

"And, if the good lady carries me off, what am I to do?"

"Strew your path with little white pebbles and say, until the very moment
when the hatchet flashes in the air, 'I have nothing to fear; _he_
will save me.' _He_ is myself ... and I kiss your hands. Till this
evening, my dear."

That afternoon, Renine had an appointment with Rose Andree and Dalbreque to
arrange for their departure for the States. [Footnote: See _The Tell-tale
Film_.] Before four and seven o'clock, he bought the different editions
of the evening papers. None of them reported an abduction.

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