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Messengers of Evil

<h2>XIV</h2> <h3>SOMEONE TELEPHONED</h3> The nuns of the order of Saint Augustin were not expelled in consequence of the Decrees. This was a special favour, but one fully justified, because of the incalculable benefits this community conferred on suffering humanity. The vast convent of rue de la Glacière continues to serve as a shelter for these holy women, and as a sort of hospital for the sick. For close on a hundred years, generation after generation of those living near its walls have heard the convent clock sound the hours in solemn tones; so, too, the convent chapel's shrill-voiced bells have never failed to remind the faithful that the daily offices of their church are being said and sung by the holy sisters within the hallowed walls. In the vast quarter of Paris, peopled with hospitals and prisons, the convent shows a stern front in the shape of a high, blackened wall. A great courtyard gate, in which a window with iron bars and grating is the only visible opening to the exterior world. About half-past six in the morning, slightly out of breath with his rapid walk from the Metropolitan station, Jérôme Fandor rang the convent door bell. The sound could be heard echoing and re-echoing in the vaulted corridors, till it died away in the stony distance. There was a silence: then the iron-barred window was half opened, and Fandor heard a voice asking: "What do you want, monsieur?" "I wish to speak to Madame the Superior," replied Fandor. The window was closed again and a lengthy silence followed. Then, slowly, the heavy entrance gate swung half open. Fandor entered the convent. Under the arched doorway, a nun received him with a slight salutation, and turned her back. "Kindly follow me," she murmured. Fandor followed along a narrow passage, on one side of which were cells, whilst on the other, it opened by means of large bays, on a vast rectangular cloister quite deserted. A door-window in the passage was ajar: the nun stopped here and said: "Kindly wait in this parlour, and be good enough to let me have your card. I will inform our Mother Superior that you wish to see her." The room in which our journalist found himself was severely furnished: its walls were white, on them hung a great ivory crucifix, and here and there, a simple religious picture framed in ebony. A few chairs were ranged in a circle about an oval table: on the floor, polished till it shone like a mirror, were a few small mats, which gave a touch of common-place comfort to the icy regularity of this parlour, set apart for official visits. What emotions, what dramas, what joys, have had this parlour for a setting! It is there that the life of the cloister touches mundane existence; it is there the nuns receive their future companions in the religious life and their weeping families; it is there the parents of those in the convent infirmary come to hear from the doctor's lips the decrees of life or death; for the convent is not only a retreat, it is an asylum for the sick, the ailing, recommended to their patients by the most eminent doctors, the most prominent surgeons. Accustomed though he was to every kind of human misery, Fandor shuddered at the thought of all these walls had seen and heard. His reflections were broken by the arrival of a little old lady, whose eyes shone strangely luminous in her pale and wrinkled face—a face showing the highest distinction. Fandor made a deep bow: it might have expressed the reverence of the world to religion. "Madame la Supérieure," murmured he, "I have come to pay my respects to you and to ask for news of your boarder." The Mother Superior, in a gay tone, which contrasted with her cold and reserved appearance, replied at once: "Ah, you preferred to come yourself! You had not the patience to wait at the telephone? I quite understand. Would you believe it, while the sister, who has charge of this young girl, was being sent for, the communication was cut off. That is why we could not give you any information." Fandor stared. "But I do not understand, madame?" The Mother Superior replied: "Was it not you then who telephoned this morning to ask for news of Mademoiselle Dollon?" "I certainly did not do so!" "In that case, I do not understand what it means, either! But it does not matter much: you shall see your protégée now." The Mother Superior rang: a sister appeared. "Sister, will you take this gentleman to Mademoiselle Dollon! She was walking in the park a short while ago, and is probably there now.... Monsieur, I bid you good day." Gliding swiftly and noiselessly over the polished floor, the Mother Superior disappeared. The nun led the way and Fandor followed: he was very much upset by what the Mother Superior had just told him. "How had Elizabeth's place of refuge been so quickly discovered?... Who could have telephoned to get news of her?" The nun had led Fandor across the great rectangular courtyard; then by corridors, and many winding, vaulted passages, they had come out on to a terrace, overlooking an immense park, which extended further than the eye could see. Here were bosky dells, ancient trees, bowers and grooves, meadows where milky mothers chewed the cud in the shade of blossoming apple trees. It might have been in Normandy, a hundred leagues from Paris! The nun turned to the admiring Fandor. "The young lady you seek, monsieur, is coming along this path: there she is!... I will leave you." Fandor had seen Elizabeth's graceful figure moving towards him, thrown into charming relief by the country landscape flooded with sunshine. In her modest mourning dress, with her fair shining hair, she appeared prettier than ever: a touching figure of sorrowing beauty! Elizabeth pressed Fandor's hands warmly. "Oh, thank you, monsieur, thank you!" she cried, "for having come to see me this morning. I know how little spare time you have! I feel vexed with myself for putting you out so ... but you see"—Elizabeth could not repress a sob—"I am so alone ... so desolate ... I have lost everything I cared for ... and you are the only person I can trust and confide in now!... I feel like a bit of wreckage at the mercy of wind and wave; I feel as though I were surrounded by enemies: I live in a nightmare.... What should I do without you to turn to?..." Our young journalist, moved by such great misfortune so simply, so candidly expressed, returned the pressure of Elizabeth's hands. "You know, mademoiselle," he said softly, but in a voice vibrating with sympathetic emotion—the only sign of feeling he permitted himself to show—"you know that you can count absolutely on me. In getting you to take a few days' rest in this retreat, I felt I was doing what was best for you. You are not solitary; but your surroundings are peaceful and friendly, and should you have enemies, though I am loath to think it, you are sheltered here beyond their reach. With reference to that, have you given your address to anyone, since yesterday?" "To no one," replied Elizabeth. "Has anyone by chance?..." She looked troubled, and gave an anxious questioning glance at Fandor. He did not want to frighten the much-tried girl, but he wished to solve the mystery of the unaccountable telephone call. "Oh, I just wished to know, mademoiselle.... Now, tell me, have you quite recovered from ... your experience of the other day?" "Ah, monsieur, I owe my life to you!" cried Elizabeth. "For, I am certain that someone wished to get rid of me ... don't you agree with me?... I must have been dosed with some narcotic, just as they dosed my poor brother, for I am now absolutely convinced that he also was sent to sleep and poisoned...." "And that he is dead! Is that not so?" asked Fandor in a low voice. Without hesitation, in a tearful voice, Elizabeth repeated: "And that he is dead. You have given me so many proofs that it is so, that I can no longer doubt it, alas! But I will take courage, as I promised you I would. I ought to live, that I may strive to rehabilitate his memory, and restore to him his reputation as a man of probity, of honour, to which he is entitled. But directly I begin to think about the horrible mystery in which I am involved, my very reason seems to totter—you can understand that, can you not? I don't understand, I don't know, I can't guess ... oh!..." "But," interrupted Fandor, "we must seriously consider the situation in all its bearings. It may cause you atrocious suffering, but you must summon all your courage, mademoiselle. We must discuss it." Fandor and Elizabeth had moved away from the terrace, and were now in the leafy solitudes of the park. Fandor began: "There is that paper with its list of names, written in green ink, mademoiselle! It was a mistake on your part not to attach any importance to it until you fancied, and perhaps rightly, that someone had tried to steal it from you. Come now, can you tell me whether this list is still in your possession, or not?" Elizabeth shook her head sadly. "I do not know, I cannot tell! My poor head is so bewildered, and I find it all the trouble in the world to collect my thoughts. I told you, the other day, that this list had disappeared from a little red pocket book, that I had put on the chimney piece of my room at Auteuil. But the more I think it over, the more doubtful I am.... It seems to me now, that this list ought to be, must be still—unless it has been stolen since—in the big trunk, into which I threw, pell-mell, the papers and books my brother left scattered about his writing table. To be quite sure about this, we must return to Auteuil.... But perhaps it is useless; because when I wanted to send it to you some forty-eight hours ago, I searched everywhere for the wretched thing, and in vain!... I am not even sure now that I brought it away with me from rue Norvins!" Fandor gently comforted the distracted girl whose eyes were full of tears. "Do not be disheartened. Try rather to put together in your memory what was written in this paper! You told me, surely, that there were names in this list of persons you knew, or had heard of? Search your memory a little, mademoiselle." "I don't know! I cannot remember!" cried Elizabeth nervously. "Come now," said Fandor encouragingly, "I know an excellent way of assisting the memory. The eyes are like a sensitive photographic plate: what the brain does not always retain, the mirror of the eye registers: do not try to remember, but try, as it were, to read on white paper what your eyes saw!..." "Let us sit down a minute and I will help you to do it!" Fandor pointed out a rustic seat, under the trees, in front of which was a garden table. They sat down together and Fandor drew from his pocket a sheet of white paper and his fountain pen. Elizabeth's arm touched his shoulder. As though electrified by this contact, the two young people trembled, their eyes met in a glance full of troubled emotion—a feeling new to both—whose immense significance neither understood. Fandor remained speechless, and Elizabeth blushed. They gazed at each other, embarrassed, not knowing what to say for themselves; and their embarrassment was only relieved by the appearance of the sister who attended to the turning box at the entrance gate. She stood at the top of the steps leading down to the park and called Elizabeth. "Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle! There is someone on the telephone who wishes to speak to you!" Fandor rose. "Will you allow me to accompany you, mademoiselle? I am very curious to know whether the person now asking for you is identical with the person who asked for you a little while ago?" The young couple hurried to the big parlour, and Elizabeth went to the telephone. "Hullo?..." Elizabeth had handed one of the receivers to Fandor. He heard a voice—an unknown voice, but beyond question masculine—who said, over the wire: "Hullo!... Is it really Mademoiselle Dollon to whom I have the honour of speaking?" "Yes, monsieur. Who is speaking to me?" But just as Elizabeth was about to repeat her question, Fandor thought he heard whoever had called up Elizabeth, hang up the receivers. No reply reached them!... Elizabeth cried impatiently: "Hullo!... Hullo!... Who is speaking to me?" But there was no one at the end of the line! Fandor swore softly to himself, then seizing the two receivers he called: "Hullo! Come, monsieur, reply!... Whom do you want? Who are you?" He could not obtain any reply. Fandor rang up the central office. When the telephone girl answered, he called: "Mademoiselle, why have you cut me off?" "But I have done nothing of the kind, monsieur!" "But I cannot get any reply!" "It is because the receivers have been hung up by whoever called you. I assure you that is so." "What was my caller's number?" "I cannot tell you that, monsieur—the rules forbid it." Fandor knew this quite well, so he did not insist further. But, as he turned away from the telephone, a dull anger smouldered within him. "Who was this mysterious individual who had called Elizabeth twice over the telephone, and then, no sooner put into communication with her, had refused to talk to her?" Fandor felt nervous, anxious, exasperated by this incident; but it would never do to trouble his young friend to no good purpose. He led her back to the garden. "Where were we in our talk, monsieur?" asked Elizabeth. With a considerable effort, the journalist collected his thoughts. "We were discussing the mysterious paper found at your brother's, mademoiselle." In agreement with Elizabeth, Jérôme Fandor determined the approximate size of this list of addresses. He tore from his note-book a sheet of white paper. Elizabeth looked fixedly at the white sheet for a long time, as though, by concentrated will power, she could force the mysterious names which she read some days before on the original paper, to rise up in front of her eyes. Certainly it seemed to her that on this list figured the name of her brother, that of the Baroness de Vibray, lawyer Gérin's also: then she remembered a double name, a name not unknown to her, which had appeared in the list. "Barbey-Nanteuil!" she suddenly cried. "Yes, I do believe those two names were on it!" Fandor smiled. Encouraged by his smile and the results of this semi-clairvoyant attempt, Elizabeth allowed her thoughts free play. "I am sure of it: there was even a mistake in spelling: Nanteuil was spelled Nauteuil: the bankers were third or fourth on the list, and I am certain now that the Baroness de Vibray's name headed the list.... There was also a date, composed of two figures—a 1 ... then—wait a minute!... a figure with a tail to it ... that is to say, it could only have been a 5, a 7, or a 9.... I cannot remember which. Then there were other names I had never heard of." "Try, mademoiselle, to remember...." There was a silence. Fandor was puzzling over the figures he had written down in the order Elizabeth had mentioned them—fifteen—seventeen—nineteen—but what could he deduce from them?... Ah!... The mysterious robbery of rue du Quatre Septembre was committed on May 15th! There may be a clue there! The thread of Fandor's reflections were abruptly broken by a cry from Elizabeth. "I have recalled a name—something like ... Thomas!... Does that tell you anything?" "Thomas?" repeated Jérôme Fandor slowly.... "I don't see...." But suddenly he saw light! He jumped up: "Isn't it Thomery?" cried he, intensely excited. "Are you not confounding Thomas with Thomery?" Elizabeth, taken aback, confused, tried hard to remember: she threshed her memory with knitted brows. "It may be so," she declared. "I see quite clearly the first letters of the word—Thom ... written in a large hand,... then the rest is indistinct ... but I have the impression that the end of the word is longer than the last syllable of Thomas." "Perhaps you are right!" Fandor was no longer listening to her. He had left the rustic bench, and without paying any attention to Elizabeth, he began walking up and down the shady path, talking to himself in a low tone, as was his habit when he wished to reduce his thoughts to order. "Thomas—that is Thomery; Jacques Dollon, the Baroness de Vibray, Barbey-Nanteuil, lawyer Gérin—but they are all the victims of the mysterious band that plots and plans in the shade!... It is incomprehensible—but we shall find a way to get to the bottom of it all!" Fandor returned to Elizabeth. "We shall get to the bottom of these mysteries," cried he, with so triumphant an air, his face shining with joy, that Elizabeth, in spite of her torturing anxieties, could not help smiling. They were alone in these green and flowery spaces. A great peace was all about them. The birds were singing, the breeze lightly stirred the trees and bushes with caressing breaths.... Fandor gazed tenderly at Elizabeth, very tenderly.... The young girl smiled tremulously, as she met this glance of lover-like tenderness. "We shall get to the bottom of it," repeated Fandor. "You will see, I promise you...." Their glances mingled in a mute communion of thought and feeling.... Spontaneously, their hands met and clasped.... They were standing close together, and theirs the consciousness of living through an unforgettable moment: they felt most vividly alive together. How young they were! How intoxicating, a moment!... The world of outside things ceased to exist for them.... They were enwrapt in a glowing world of their own!... Fandor's hand slid to Elizabeth's shoulder; he leaned towards the unresisting girl, and with closed eyes, their lips met in a long kiss—a kiss all ecstasy.... It was a moment's mutual madness!... The instant past, both knew it. Torn from this momentary dream of bliss, they gazed at each other, embarrassed, greatly moved: for that very reason they wished to part. Ah, this was not the moment to speak of love, to dream of happiness and mutual joy! Dark, dreadful mysteries enclosed them: it was a sinister net they struggled in: as yet they could see no clear way out!... They had no right to be themselves until the mysteries were cleared away.... They could not belong to each other now! <hr style='width: 45%;' /> Fandor, when taking leave of Elizabeth, expressed a wish that she should not accompany him to the convent; and she, still shaken with emotion, had not insisted on doing so. As he was on the point of stepping into the street, a sister came up to him. "You are Monsieur Jérôme Fandor?" "Yes, sister." "Our Mother Superior wishes to speak to you." Our journalist bowed acquiescence. Some minutes later, the Mother Superior joined him in the large parlour. "Monsieur," she began, "I must apologise for having sent for you, but I wished to have a necessary talk with you." Fandor interrupted the saintly nun. "And I must apologise, reverend Mother, for not having come to pay my respects to you before leaving. Had I not been much troubled, I should never have dreamt of leaving without thanking you for the help you have been good enough to give me." The nun looked at him questioningly. Fandor continued: "In agreeing to receive Mademoiselle Elizabeth Dollon as a boarder, you have done a deed of true charity: this poor girl is so unhappy, so tried, so unfortunate, that I really do not know where she could have found a better refuge than in this convent under your sheltering care.... I ..." But the nun would not allow Fandor to continue. "It is precisely about Mademoiselle Dollon that I wish to speak to you.... Of course, I should be glad to help and comfort one suffering from a real misfortune; but I must confess, that when Mademoiselle Dollon presented herself here as a boarder, I was ignorant of the exact nature of the scandal in which she is involved." Fandor was taken aback at the harsh tone of the nun's speech. "Good Heavens, madame, what do you mean to insinuate?" "I have just been informed, monsieur, of the exact nature of the relations which existed between the criminal, Jacques Dollon, and Madame de Vibray." Fandor stiffened with indignation. "It is false!" he cried. "Utterly false! You have been misinformed!" He stopped short. The nun signified by a movement of her hand that further protests were useless. "In any case, whether false or not, it is quite certain that we cannot keep this girl here any longer, for her name will, in the end, do harm to the respectability of this house." Fandor was astounded at this extraordinary statement. "In other words," said he, "you refuse to keep Mademoiselle here any longer as a boarder?" "Yes, monsieur!" The journalist moved a step or two, then, with bent head, seemed to be turning something over in his mind. "It comes to this, madame, you are not giving me your true reasons for ..." Again the nun interrupted the young man with a gesture. "True, monsieur, I should have preferred not to mention my real and very definite reasons which make it an imperative duty that I should request Mademoiselle Dollon to seek another refuge. Nevertheless, since you insist, I will tell you that Mademoiselle Dollon's attitude just now—her behaviour—is what we cannot possibly allow...." "Good Heavens! What do you wish to insinuate now, madame?" "You kissed her, monsieur. I regret that you have forced me to go into details. I regret that you have compelled me to put into words this—I will not allow you to turn this religious house into a lover's meeting place! Am I clear?" Before Fandor had time to protest, the nun gave him a curt bow, and prepared to leave him. The young journalist recalled her. He was angry; all the more so, because he knew that the Mother Superior had some justification for the attitude she had taken up. Alas! All his protestations were vain! "Very well, madame," he said at last. "You are utterly mistaken; but I recognise that your attitude has some colour of justification, and I bow to your decision, based on misinformation and a mistake though it be. Kindly allow me two days' grace, that I may find another refuge for Mademoiselle Dollon!" With a movement of her head the nun signified her assent; then, with a final bow, she left the parlour. Crestfallen, but full of angry resolve, Jérôme Fandor turned his back on the convent. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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