The Three Eyes. Морис Леблан
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certainly saw. I saw first three strange eyes that looked at us; then I witnessed a scene which was the murder of Miss Cavell. That is what I saw, just as you did, uncle; and I do not for a moment doubt the undeniable evidence of my own eyes."
He held out his hand to me:
"That's what I wanted to know, my boy. And thank you."
I have given a faithful account of what happened that afternoon. In the evening we dined together by ourselves, Bérangère having sent word to say that she was indisposed and would not leave her room. My uncle was deeply absorbed in thought and did not say a word on what had happened in the Yard.
I slept hardly at all, haunted by the recollection of what I had seen and tormented by a score of theories, which I need not mention here, for not one of them was of the slightest value.
Next day, Bérangère did not come downstairs. At luncheon, my uncle preserved the same silence. I tried many times to make him talk, but received no reply.
My curiosity was too intense to allow my uncle to get rid of me in this way. I took up my position in the garden before he left the house. Not until five o'clock did he go up to the Yard.
"Shall I come with you, uncle?" I suggested, boldly.
He grunted, neither granting my request nor refusing it. I followed him. He walked across the Yard, locked himself into his principal workshop and did not leave it until an hour later:
"Ah, there you are!" he said, as though he had been unaware of any presence.
He went to the wall and briskly drew the curtain. Just then he asked me to go back to the workshop and to fetch something or other which he had forgotten. When I returned, he said, excitedly:
"It's finished, it's finished!"
"What is, uncle?"
"The Eyes, the Three Eyes."
"Oh, have you seen them?"
"Yes; and I refuse to believe . . . no, of course, it's an illusion on my part. . . . How could it be possible, when you come to think of it? Imagine, the eyes wore the expression of my dead son's eyes, yes, the very expression of my poor Dominique. It's madness, isn't it? And yet I declare, yes, I declare that Dominique was gazing at me . . . at first with a sad and sorrowful gaze, which suddenly became the terrified gaze of a man who is staring death in the face. And then the Three Eyes began to revolve upon themselves. That was the end."
I made Noël Dorgeroux sit down:
"It's as you suppose, uncle, an illusion, an hallucination. Just think, Dominique has been dead so many years! It is therefore incredible . . ."
"Everything is incredible and nothing is," he said. "There is no room for human logic in front of that wall."
I tried to reason with him, though my mind was becoming as bewildered as his own. But he silenced me:
"That'll do," he said. "Here's the other thing beginning."
He pointed to the screen, which was showing signs of life and preparing to reveal a new picture.
"But, uncle," I said, already overcome by excitement, "where does that come from?"
"Don't speak," said Noël Dorgeroux. "Not a word."
I at once observed that this other thing bore no relation to what I had witnessed the day before; and I concluded that the scenes presented must occur without any prearranged order, without any chronological or serial connection, in short, like the different films displayed in the course of a performance.
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