Rouletabille

“ I had not seen him at table with them, at the moment when we looked in.
I retired into the dark closet. I found myself perfectly situated. I could see along the whole length of the gallery. Nothing, absolutely nothing could pass there without my seeing it. But what was going to pass there? Rouletabille’s embrace came back to my mind. I argued that people don’t part from each other in that way unless on an important or dangerous occasion. Was I then in danger?
My hand closed on the butt of my revolver and I waited. I am not a hero; but neither am I a coward. ”

“ As I have already several times observed, Monsieur Rouletabille, you reason too much; you do not allow yourself to be guided by what you have seen. What do you say to the handkerchief full of blood, and the red mark of the hand on the wall? You have seen the stain on the wall, but I have only seen the handkerchief.”
“Bah!” cried Rouletabille, “the murderer was wounded in the hand by Mademoiselle Stangerson’s revolver!”
“Ah!—a simply instinctive observation! Take care!—You are becoming too strictly logical, Monsieur Rouletabille; logic will upset you if you use it indiscriminatively. ”

“ Rouletabille understood at last that hanging him in the room where judgment had been pronounced was rendered impossible by the violence of the prisoner just executed. Not only the rope and the ring-bolt had been torn away, but part of the beam had splintered.
“There is nothing more,” replied Rouletabille. ”

“ Finally, Rouletabille spoke:
“Messieurs,” said he, his voice low and shaken, because he knew that now he touched the decisive minute, after which there could only be an irrevocable fate. “Messieurs, in order to continue my experiment I am obliged to go through movements that might suggest to you the idea of an attempt at escape, or evasion. I hope you don’t regard me as fool enough to have any such thought.”
“Oh, monsieur,” said the chief, “you are free to go through all the maneuvers you wish. No one escapes us. Outside we should have you within arm’s reach quite as well as here. ”

“ I am a rough and faithful soldier of His Majesty, but I am not a monster, and I have the feelings of a husband and father, my dear monsieur. Tell your readers that, if you care to, and do not surmise further about whether I appear to regret being condemned to death.”
Certainly what stupefied Rouletabille now was this staunch figure of the condemned man who appeared so tranquilly to enjoy his life. When the general was not furthering the gayety of his friends he was talking with his wife and daughter, who adored him and continually fondled him, and he seemed perfectly happy. ”

“ Ah, good! it was Rouletabille. “Himself, dear madame; himself.”
“Why is Ermolai in the veranda? Send him back to the kitchens and tell the schwitzar to go to bed. The servants are enough for an ordinary guard outside. Then you go in at once, shut the door, and don’t concern yourself about me, dear madame. Good-night.”
Rouletabille had resumed, in the shadows, among the other porcelain figures, his pose of a porcelain man.
Matrena Petrovna did as she was told, returned to the house, spoke to the schwitzar, who removed to the lodge with Ermolai, and their mistress closed the outside door. ”

“ And she carried him back into the apartment while she said quickly to Rouletabille:
“Go, little domovoi! And God protect us!”
Rouletabille disappeared at once through the door to the main staircase, and the group attended by Koupriane, passed through the dressing-room and the general’s chamber, Matrena Petrovna in the lead with her precious burden. Ivan Petrovitch had his hand already on the famous bolt which locked the door to the servants’ staircase when they all turned at the sound of a quick step behind them. Rouletabille had returned. ”

“ Only one man watched it, and he had not the air of watching. Certainly Rouletabille had not the air of constantly watching anything. He had the manner, out in the night, of an easy little man in porcelain, neither more nor less, yet he could see everything—if anything were there to see—and he could hear everything—if there were anything to hear. One passed beside him without suspecting him, and men might talk to each other without an idea that he heard them, and even talk to themselves according to the habit people have sometimes when they think themselves quite alone. ”

“ Now the police had gone from cellar to garret. Koupriane came from the Trébassof villa and joined them, Rouletabille followed him. The reporter could not stand the sight of that body, that still had a lingering warmth, of the great open eyes that seemed to stare at him, reproaching him for this violent death. He turned away in distaste, and perhaps a little in fright. Koupriane caught the movement.
“Regrets?” he queried.
“Yes,” said Rouletabille. “A death always must be regretted. None the less, he was a criminal. ”

“ But Athanase Georgevitch had told a “good story” which raised so much hubbub that nothing else could be heard. Feodor Feodorovitch was so amused that he had tears in his eyes. Rouletabille said to himself as Matrena talked, “I never have seen men so gay, and yet they know perfectly they are apt to be blown up all together any moment.”
General Trebassof, who had steadily watched Rouletabille, who, for that matter, had been kept in eye by everyone there, said:
“Eh, eh, monsieur le journaliste, you find us very gay?”
“I find you very brave,” said Rouletabille quietly. ”

“ The chances of war! Nichevo!” He pressed Rouletabille’s hand, and Matrena Petrovna took, as was her habit, Feodor Feodorovitch on her back and lugged him to his chamber. In that also she refused aid from anyone. The general clung to his wife’s neck during the ascent and laughed like a child. Rouletabille remained in the hallway, watching the garden attentively. Ermolai walked out of the villa and crossed the garden, going to meet a personage in uniform whom the young man recognized immediately as the grand-marshal of the court, who had introduced him to the Tsar. ”

“ Under the veranda the schwitzar was spreading a mattress for Ermolai. She asked him if he had seen the young Frenchman anywhere, and after the answer, could only say to herself, “Where is he, then?” Where had Rouletabille gone? The general, whom she had carried up to his room on her back, without any help, and had helped into bed without assistance, was disturbed by this singular disappearance. Had someone already carried off “their” Rouletabille? Their friends were gone and the orderlies had taken leave without being able to say where this boy of a journalist had gone. ”

“ Rouletabille motioned to Madame Matrena, stepped back into the sitting-room and closed the door.
"Police?" he asked.
Matrena Pétrovna nodded her head and put her finger to her mouth in a naïve way, as one would caution a child to silence. Rouletabille smiled.
"How many are there?"
"Ten, relieved every six hours."
"That makes forty unknown men around your house each day."
"Not unknown," she replied. "Police."
"Yet, in spite of them, you have had the affair of the bouquet in the general's chamber." ”

“ For Rouletabille to doubt, and in an affair where already there was one man dead through his agency, was torment worse than death.
When they arrived at police-headquarters, Rouletabille jumped from Koupriane’s carriage and without saying a word hailed an empty isvotchick that was passing. He had himself driven back to Père Alexis. His doubt mastered his will; he could not bear to wait away. Under the arch of Aptiekarski-Pereoulok he saw once more the man Koupriane had placed there with the order to bring him Alexis’s message. The man looked at him in astonishment. ”

“ That, of course, is only an hypothesis.”
Rouletabille sat down in an armchair, lit his pipe, which he was never without, smoked for a few minutes in silence—no doubt to calm the excitement which, visibly, dominated him—and then replied:—
“Young man,” he said, in a tone the sad irony of which I will not attempt to render, “young man, you are a lawyer and I doubt not your ability to save the guilty from conviction; but if you were a magistrate on the bench, how easy it would be for you to condemn innocent persons!—You are really gifted, young man!” ”

“ Rouletabille, who felt the brave woman's emotion affecting him also, braced himself to keep from showing it.
"I am able to help you a little all the same," he said. "Monsieur Koupriane has told me that there is a deep mystery. It is my vocation to get to the bottom of mysteries."
"I know what Koupriane thinks," she said, shaking her head. "But if I could bring myself to think that for a single day I would rather be dead."
The good Matrena Petrovna lifted her beautiful eyes to Rouletabille, brimming with the tears she held back. ”

“ But what will Koupriane say? He will not permit any venturing beyond the villa; none, at least for the moment. Ah, now, how he looks at me, the dear little domovoi! Oh, well, yes. There, I will do as you wish.”
“Very well, come into the garden with me.”
She accompanied him, leaning on his arm.
“Here’s the idea,” said Rouletabille. “This afternoon you will go with the general in his rolling-chair. Everybody will follow. Everyone, you understand, Madame—understand me thoroughly, I mean to say that everyone who wishes to come must be invited to. Only those who wish to remain behind will do so. ”

“ The others drew back and waited at a distance, in impressive silence, the outcome of this mysterious colloquy, which certainly would settle Rouletabille’s fate.
“Messieurs,” said the chief, “the young Frenchman is going to be allowed to leave. We give him twenty-four hours to set Natacha Féodorovna free. In twenty-four hours, if he has not succeeded, he will return here to give himself up.” ”

“ Rouletabille would have believed himself stronger, more courageous, more stoical at least. But blind instinct swept all of this away, that instinct of conservation which had no concern with the minor bravadoes of the reporter, no concern with the fine heroic manner, of the determined pose to die finely, because the instinct of conservation, which is, as its rigid name indicates, essentially materialistic, demands only, thinks of nothing but, to live. ”

“ You will pass a good night, I am sure.”
“I can sleep only if you sleep, Matrena.”
“I promise you. It is quite possible now that we have our dear little domovoi. You know, Féodor, that he smokes his pipe just like the dear little porcelain domovoi.”
“He does resemble him, he certainly does,” said Féodor. “That makes us feel happy, but I wish him to sleep also.”
“Yes, yes,” smiled Rouletabille, “everybody will sleep here. That is the countersign. We have watched enough. Since the police are gone we can all sleep, believe me, general.” ”

“ The Trap (Extract from the Note-Book of Joseph Rouletabille)
“Last night—the night between the 29th and 30th of October—” wrote Joseph Rouletabille, “I woke up towards one o’clock in the morning. Was it sleeplessness, or noise without?—The cry of the Bête du Bon Dieu rang out with sinister loudness from the end of the park. I rose and opened the window. Cold wind and rain; opaque darkness; silence. I reclosed my window. Again the sound of the cat’s weird cry in the distance. I partly dressed in haste. The weather was too bad for even a cat to be turned out in it. ”

“ When a young man is a poet, it is useless to live like a soldier. Someone has said that, I don’t know the name now, and when one has ideas that may upset other people, surely they ought to live in solitude.”
Rouletabille looked at Natacha, who was as pale as her white gown, and who added no word to her mother’s outburst. They had drawn near the kiosk. Rouletabille saluted the general, who called to him to come up and, when the young man extended his hand, he drew him abruptly nearer and embraced him. ”

“ Koupriane looked at him. Rouletabille had not quitted Matrena Pétrovna’s eyes, and her pallor struck Koupriane.
“Just a minute,” continued the young man. “I’m sure there is someone who will miss me—that brave woman there. Ask her which she prefers, all your police, or her dear little domovoi. We are good friends already. ”

“ Rouletabille told him very briefly and without drawing any deductions all that we already know. He ended his account as a man dressed in a maroon coat with false astrakhan was introduced. It was the same man Rouletabille had met in General Trebassof’s drawing-room and who spoke French. Two gendarmes were behind him. The door had been closed. Koupriane turned toward the man in the coat.
“Touman,” he said, “I want to talk to you. You are a traitor, and I have proof. You can confess to me, and I will give you a thousand roubles and you can take yourself off to be hanged somewhere else.” ”

“ He returned, saying, “No one sick.”
Like the marshal, Matrena Pétrovna and Féodor Féodorovitch looked at one another, repeating in French, “No one sick! That is strange!”
Rouletabille came forward and gave the only explanation that was plausible—for the others.
“But, General, that is not strange at all. The grapes have been stolen and eaten by some domestic, and if the servant has not been sick it is simply that the grapes monsieur le maréchal brought escaped the spraying of the Bordeaux mixture. That is the whole mystery.”
“The little fellow must be right,” cried the delighted marshal. ”

“ Natacha! Innocent or guilty, where was she? What was she doing? to know that! To know if one were right or wrong—and if one were wrong, to disappear, to die!
Thus the unhappy Rouletabille muttered as he walked along the bank of the Neva, not far from the ruins of the poor datcha, where the joyous friends of Feodor Feodorovitch would have no more good dinners, never; so he soliloquized, his head on fire. ”