"Oh, oh, oh," moaned Matrena, who paled visibly. "And that hole?"
"It exists."
"You have discovered it?"
"Yes, the first hour I was here."
"Oh, domovoi! But how did you do that when you never entered the general's chamber until tonight?"
"Doubtless, but I went up that servants' staircase much earlier than that. And I will tell you why. When I was brought into the villa the first time, and you watched me, bidden behind the door, do you know what I was watching myself, while I appeared to be solely occupied digging out the caviare? The fresh print of bootnails which left the carpet near the table, where someone had spilled beer (the beer was still running down the cloth). Someone had stepped in the beer. The bootprint was not clearly visible excepting there. But from there it went to the door of the servants' stairway and mounted the stairs. That boot was too fine to be mounting a stairway reserved to servants and that Koupriane told me had been condemned, and it was that made me notice it in a moment; but just then you entered."
"You never told me anything about it. Of course if I had known there was a bootprint"
"I didn't tell you anything about it because I had my reasons for that, and, anyway, the trace dried while I was telling you about my journey."
"Ah, why not have told me later?"
"Because I didn't know you yet."
"Subtle devil! You will kill me. I can no longerLet us go into the general's chamber. We will wake him."
"Remain here. Remain here. I have not told you anything. That bootprint preoccupied me, and later, when I could get away from the diningroom, I was not easy until I had climbed that stairway myself and gone to see that door, where I discovered what I have just told you and what I am going to tell you now."
"What? What? In all you have said there has been nothing about the hatpins."
"We have come to them now."
"And the bouquet attack, which is going to happen again? Why? Why?"
"This is it. When this evening you let me go to the general's chamber, I examined the bolt of the door without your suspecting it. My opinion was confirmed. It was that way that the bomb was brought, and it is by that way that someone has prepared to return."
"But how? You are sure the little hole is the way someone came? But what makes you think that is how they mean to return? You know well enough that, not having succeeded in the general's chamber, they are at work in the diningroom."
"Madame, it is probable, it is certain that they have given up the work in the diningroom since they have commenced this very day working again in the general's chamber. Yes, someone returned, returned that way, and I was so sure of that, of the forthcoming return, that I removed the police in order to be able to study everything more at my ease. Do you understand now my confidence and why I have been able to assume so heavy a responsibility? It is because I knew I had only one thing to watch: one little hatpin. It is not difficult, madame, to watch a single little hatpin."
"A mistake," said Matrena, in a low voice. "Miserable little domovoi who told me nothing, me whom you let go to sleep on my mattress, in front of that door that might open any moment."
"No, madame. For I was behind it!"
"Ah, dear little holy angel! But what were you thinking of! That door has not been watched this afternoon. In our absence it could have been opened. If someone has placed a bomb during our absence!"
"That is why I sent you at once in to the diningroom on that search that I thought would be fruitless, dear madame. And that is why I hurried upstairs to the bedroom. I went to the stairway door instantly. I had prepared for proof positive if anyone had pushed it open even half a millimeter. No, no one had touched the door in our absence.
"Ah, dear heroic little friend of Jesus! But listen to me. Listen to me, my angel. Ah, I don't know where I am or what I say. My brain is no more than a flabby balloon punctured with pins, with little holes of hatpins. Tell me about the hatpins. Right off! No, at first, what is it that makes you believegood God!that someone will return by that door? How can you see that, all that, in a poor little hatpin?"
"Madame, it is not a single hatpin hole; there are two of them.
"Two hatpin holes?"
"Yes, two. An old one and a new one. One quite new. Why this second hole? Because the old one was judged a little too narrow and they wished to enlarge it, and in enlarging it they broke off the point of a hatpin in it. Madame, the point is there yet, filling up the little old hole and the piece of metal is very sharp and very bright."
"Now I understand the examination of the hatpins. Then it is so easy as that to get through a door with a hatpin?"
"Nothing easier, especially if the panel is of pine. Sometimes one happens to break the point of a pin in the first hole. Then of necessity one makes a second. In order to commence the second hole, the point of the pin being broken, they have used the point of a penknife, then have finished the hole with the hatpin. The second hole is still nearer the bolt than the first one. Don't move like that, madame."
"But they are going to come! They are going to come!"
"I believe so."
"But I can't understand how you can remain so quiet with such a certainty. Great heavens! what proof have you that they have not been there already?"
"Just an ordinary pin, madame, not a hatpin this time. Don't confuse the pins. I will show you in a little while."
"He will drive me distracted with his pins, dear light of my eyes! Bounty of Heaven! God's envoy! Dear little happinessbearer!"
In her transport she tried to take him in her trembling arms, but he waved her back. She caught her breath and resumed:
"Did the examination of all the hatpins tell you anything?"
"Yes. The fifth hatpin of Mademoiselle Natacha's, the one in the toque out in the veranda, has the tip newly broken off."
"O misery!" cried Matrena, crumpling in her chair.
Rouletabille raised her.
"What would you have? I have examined your own hatpins. Do you think I would have suspected you if I had found one of them broken? I would simply have thought that someone had used your property for an abominable purpose, that is all."
"Oh, that is true, that is true. Pardon me. Mother of Christ, this boy crazes me! He consoles me and he horrifies me. He makes me think of such dreadful things, and then he reassures me. He does what he wishes with me. What should I become without him?"
And this time she succeeded in taking his head in her two hands and kissing him passionately. Rouletabille pushed her back roughly.
"You keep me from seeing," he said.
She was in tears over his rebuff. She understood now. Rouletabille during all this conversation had not ceased to watch through the open doors of Matrena's room and the dressingroom the farther fatal door whose brass bolt shone in the yellow light of the nightlamp.
At last he made her a sign and the reporter, followed by Matrena, advanced on tiptoe to the threshold of the general's chamber, keeping close to the wall. Feodor Feodorovitch slept. They heard his heavy breath, but he appeared to be enjoying peaceful sleep. The horrors of the night before had fled. Matrena was perhaps right in attributing the nightmares to the narcotic prepared for him each night, for the glass from which he drank it when he felt he could not sleep was still full and obviously had not been touched. The bed of the general was so placed that whoever occupied it, even if they were wide awake, could not see the door giving on the servants' stairway. The little table where the glass and various phials were placed and which had borne the dangerous bouquet, was placed near the bed, a little back of it, and nearer the door. Nothing would have been easier than for someone who could open the door to stretch an arm and place the infernal machine among the wild flowers, above all, as could easily be believed, if he had waited for that treachery until the heavy breathing of the general told them outside that he was fast asleep, and if, looking through the keyhole, he had made sure Matrena was occupied in her own chamber. Rouletabille, at the threshold, glided to one side, out of the line of view from the hole, and got down on all fours. He crawled toward the door. With his head to the floor he made sure that the little ordinary pin which he had placed on guard that evening, stuck in the floor against the door, was still erect, having thus additional proof that the door had not been moved. In any other case the pin would have lain flat on the floor. He crept back, rose to his feet, passed into the dressingroom and, in a corner, had a rapid conversation in a low voice with Matrena.
"You will go," said he, "and take your mattress into the corner of the dressingroom where you can still see the door but no one can see you by looking through the keyhole. Do that quite naturally, and then go to your rest. I will pass the night on the mattress, and I beg you to believe that I will be more comfortable there than on a bed of staircase wood where I spent the night last night, behind the door."
"Yes, but you will fall asleep. I don't wish that."
"What are you thinking, madame?"
"I don't wish it. I don't wish it. I don't wish to quit the door where the eye is. And since I'm not able to sleep, let me watch."
He did not insist, and they crouched together on the mattress. Rouletabille was squatted like a tailor at work; but Matrena remained on allfours, her jaw out, her eyes fixed, like a bulldog ready to spring. The minutes passed by in profound silence, broken only by the irregular breathing and puffing of the general. His face stood out pallid and tragic on the pillow; his mouth was open and, at times, the lips moved. There was fear at any moment of nightmare or his awakening. Unconsciously he threw an arm over toward the table where the glass of narcotic stood. Then he lay still again and snored lightly. The nightlamp on the mantelpiece caught queer yellow reflections from the corners of the furniture, from the gilded frame of a picture on the wall and from the phials and glasses on the table. But in all the chamber Matrena Petrovna saw nothing, thought of nothing but the brass bolt which shone there on the door. Tired of being on her knees, she shifted, her chin in her hands, her gaze steadily fixed. As time passed and nothing happened she heaved a sigh. She could not have said whether she hoped for or dreaded the coming of that something new which Rouletabille had indicated. Rouletabille felt her shiver with anguish and impatience.
As for him, he had not hoped that anything would come to pass until toward dawn, the moment, as everyone knows, when deep sleep is most apt to vanquish all watchfulness and all insomnia. And as he waited for that moment he had not budged any more than a Chinese ape or the dear little porcelain domovoi doukh in the garden. Of course it might be that it was not to happen this night.
Suddenly Matrena's hand fell on Rouletabille's. His imprisoned hers so firmly that she understood she was forbidden to make the least movement. And both, with necks extended, ears erect, watched like beasts, like beasts on the scent.
Yes, yes, there had been a slight noise in the lock. A key turned, softly, softly, in the lock, and thensilence; and then another little noise, a grinding sound, a slight grating of wire, above, then on the bolt; upon the bolt which shone in the subdued glow of the nightlamp. The bolt softly, very softly, slipped slowly.
Then the door was pushed slowly, so slowly. It opened.
Through the opening the shadow of an arm stretched, an arm which held in its fingers something which shone. Rouletabille felt Matrena ready to bound. He encircled her, he pressed her in his arms, he restrained her in silence, and he had a horrible fear of hearing her suddenly shout, while the arm stretched out, almost touched the pillow on the bed where the general continued to sleep a sleep of peace such as he had not known for a long time.
VII
Arsenate of Soda
The mysterious hand held a phial and poured the entire contents into the potion. Then the hand withdrew as it had come, slowly, prudently, slyly, and the key turned in the lock and the bolt slipped back into place.
Like a wolf, Rouletabille, warning Matrena for a last time not to budge, gained the landingplace, bounded towards the stairs, slid down the banister right to the veranda, crossed the drawingroom like a flash, and reached the little sittingroom without having jostled a single piece of furniture. He noticed nothing, saw nothing. All around was undisturbed and silent.
The first light of dawn filtered through the blinds. He was able to make out that the only closed door was the one to Natacha's chamber. He stopped before that door, his heart beating, and listened. But no sound came to his ear. He had glided so lightly over the carpet that he was sure he had not been heard. Perhaps that door would open. He waited. In vain. It seemed to him there was nothing alive in that house except his heart. He was stifled with the horror that he glimpsed, that he almost touched, although that door remained closed. He felt along the wall in order to reach the window, and pulled aside the curtain. Window and blinds of the little room giving on the Neva were closed. The bar of iron inside was in its place. Then he went to the passage, mounted and descended the narrow servants' stairway, looked all about, in all the rooms, feeling everywhere with silent hands, assuring himself that no lock had been tampered with. On his return to the veranda, as he raised his head, he saw at the top of the main staircase a figure wan as death, a spectral apparition amid the shadows of the passing night, who leaned toward him. It was Matrena Petrovna. She came down, silent as a phantoms and he no longer recognized her voice when she demanded of him, "Where? I require that you tell me. Where?"
"I have looked everywhere," he said, so low that Matrena had to come nearer to understand his whisper. "Everything is shut tight. And there is no one about."
Matrena looked at Rouletabille with all the power of her eyes, as though she would discover his inmost thoughts, but his clear glance did not waver, and she saw there was nothing he wished to hide. Then Matrena pointed her finger at Natacha's chamber.
"You have not gone in there?" she inquired.
He replied, "It is not necessary to enter there."
"I will enter there, myself, nevertheless," said she, and she set her teeth.
He barred her way with his arms spread out.
"If you hold the life of someone dear," said he, "don't go a step farther."
"But the person is in that chamber. The person is there! It is there you will find out!" And she waved him aside with a gesture as though she were sleepwalking.
To recall her to the reality of what he had said to her and to make her understand what he desired, he had to grip her wrist in the vice of his nervous hand.
"The person is not there, perhaps," he said his head. "Understand me now."
But she did not understand him. She said:
"Since the person is nowhere else, the person must be there."
But Rouletabille continued obstinately:
"No, no. Perhaps he is gone."
"Gone! And everything locked on the inside!"
"That is not a reason," he replied.
But she could not follow his thoughts any further. She wished absolutely to make her way into Natacha's chamber. The obsession of that was upon her.
"If you enter there," said he, "and if (as is most probable) you don't find what you seek there, all is lost! And as to me, I give up the whole thing."
She sank in a heap onto a chair.
"Don't despair," he murmured. "We don't know for sure yet."
She shook her poor old head dejectedly.
"We know that only she is here, since no one has been able to enter and since no one has been able to leave."
That, in truth, filled her brain, prevented her from discerning in any corner of her mind the thought of Rouletabille. Then the impossible dialogue resumed.
"I repeat that we do not know but that the person has gone," repeated the reporter, and demanded her keys.
"Foolish," she said. "What do you want them for?"
"To search outside as we have searched inside."
"Why, everything is locked on the inside!"