The Eight Strokes of the Clock. Leblanc Maurice
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two scarecrows, isn't it, both stuck up on the top? But why?"
"Look again," he said. "Look more carefully under the hats … the faces...."
"Oh!" she cried, turning faint with horror, "how awful!"
The field of the telescope, like the circular picture shown by a magic lantern, presented this spectacle: the platform of a broken tower, the walls of which were higher in the more distant part and formed as it were a back-drop, over which surged waves of ivy. In front, amid a cluster of bushes, were two human beings, a man and a woman, leaning back against a heap of fallen stones.
But the words man and woman could hardly be applied to these two forms, these two sinister puppets, which, it is true, wore clothes and hats–or rather shreds of clothes and remnants of hats–but had lost their eyes, their cheeks, their chins, every particle of flesh, until they were actually and positively nothing more than two skeletons.
"Two skeletons," stammered Hortense. "Two skeletons with clothes on. Who carried them up there?"
"Nobody."
"But still...."
"That man and that woman must have died at the top of the tower, years and years ago … and their flesh rotted under their clothes and the ravens ate them."
"But it's hideous, hideous!" cried Hortense, pale as death, her face drawn with horror.
Half an hour later, Hortense Daniel and Rénine left the Château de Halingre. Before their departure, they had gone as far as the ivy-grown tower, the remains of an old donjon-keep more than half demolished. The inside was empty. There seemed to have been a way of climbing to the top, at a comparatively recent period, by means of wooden stairs and ladders which now lay broken and scattered over the ground. The tower backed against the wall which marked the end of the park.
A curious fact, which surprised Hortense, was that Prince Rénine had neglected to pursue a more minute enquiry, as though the matter had lost all interest for him. He did not even speak of it any longer; and, in the inn at which they stopped and took a light meal in the nearest village, it was she who asked the landlord about the abandoned château. But she learnt nothing from him, for the man was new to the district and could give her no particulars. He did not even know the name of the owner.
They turned their horses' heads towards La Marèze. Again and again Hortense recalled the squalid sight which had met their eyes. But Rénine, who was in a lively mood and full of attentions to his companion, seemed utterly indifferent to those questions.
"But, after all," she exclaimed, impatiently, "we can't leave the matter there! It calls for a solution."
"As you say," he replied, "a solution is called for. M. Rossigny has to know where he stands and you have to decide what to do about him."
She shrugged her shoulders: "He's of no importance for the moment. The thing to-day...."
"Is what?"
"Is to know what those two dead bodies are."
"Still, Rossigny...."
"Rossigny can wait. But I can't. You have shown me a mystery which is now the only thing that matters. What do you intend to do?"
"To do?"
"Yes. There are two bodies.... You'll inform the police, I suppose."
"Gracious goodness!" he exclaimed, laughing. "What for?"
"Well, there's a riddle that has to be cleared up at all costs, a terrible tragedy."
"We don't need any one to do that."
"What! Do you mean to say that you understand it?"
"Almost as plainly as though I had read it in a book, told in full detail, with explanatory illustrations. It's all so simple!"
She looked at him askance, wondering if he was making fun of her. But he seemed quite serious.
"Well?" she asked, quivering with curiosity.
The light was beginning to wane. They had trotted at a good pace; and the hunt was returning as they neared La Marèze.
"Well," he said, "we shall get the rest of our information from people living round about … from your uncle, for instance; and you will see how logically all the facts fit in. When you hold the first link of a chain, you are bound, whether you like it or not, to reach the last. It's the greatest fun in the world."
Once in the house, they separated. On going to her room, Hortense found her luggage and a furious letter from Rossigny in which he bade her good-bye and announced his departure.
Then Rénine knocked at her door:
"Your uncle is in the library," he said. "Will you go down with me? I've sent word that I am coming."
She went with him. He added:
"One word more. This morning, when I thwarted your plans and begged you to trust me, I naturally undertook an obligation towards you which I mean to fulfill without delay. I want to give you a positive proof of this."
She laughed:
"The only obligation which you took upon yourself was to satisfy my curiosity."
"It shall be satisfied," he assured her, gravely, "and more fully than you can possibly imagine."
M. d'Aigleroche was alone. He was smoking his pipe and drinking sherry. He offered a glass to Rénine, who refused.
"Well, Hortense!" he said, in a rather thick voice. "You know that it's pretty dull here, except in these September days. You must make the most of them. Have you had a pleasant ride with Rénine?"
"That's just what I wanted to talk about, my dear sir," interrupted the prince.
"You must excuse me, but I have to go to the station in ten minutes, to meet a friend of my wife's."
"Oh, ten minutes will be ample!"
"Just the time to smoke a cigarette?"
"No longer."
He took a cigarette from the case which M. d'Aigleroche handed to him, lit it and said:
"I must tell you that our ride happened to take us to an old domain which you are sure to know, the Domaine de Halingre."
"Certainly I know it. But it has been closed, boarded up for twenty-five years or so. You weren't able to get in, I suppose?"
"Yes, we were."
"Really? Was it interesting?"
"Extremely. We discovered the strangest things."
"What things?" asked the count, looking at his watch.
Rénine described what they had seen:
"On a tower some way from the house there were two dead bodies, two skeletons rather … a man and a woman still wearing the clothes which they had on when they were murdered."
"Come, come, now! Murdered?"
"Yes; and that is what we have come to trouble you about. The tragedy must date back to some twenty years ago. Was nothing known of it at the time?"
"Certainly not," declared the count. "I never heard of any such crime or disappearance."
"Oh, really!" said Rénine, looking a little disappointed. "I hoped to obtain a few particulars."
"I'm sorry."
"In that case, I apologise."
He consulted Hortense with a glance and moved towards the door. But on second thought:
"Could you not at least, my dear sir, bring me into touch with some persons in the neighbourhood, some members of your family, who might know more about it?"
"Of my family? And why?"
"Because the Domaine de Halingre used to belong and no doubt still belongs to the d'Aigleroches. The arms are an eagle on a heap of stones, on a rock. This at once suggested the connection."
This time the count appeared surprised. He pushed back his decanter and his glass of sherry and said:
"What's this you're telling me?