The Secret of Sarek Read online

  CHAPTER I

  THE DESERTED CABIN

  Into the picturesque village of Le Faouet, situated in the very heart ofBrittany, there drove one morning in the month of May a lady whosespreading grey cloak and the thick veil that covered her face failed tohide her remarkable beauty and perfect grace of figure.

  The lady took a hurried lunch at the principal inn. Then, at abouthalf-past eleven, she begged the proprietor to look after her bag forher, asked for a few particulars about the neighbourhood and walkedthrough the village into the open country.

  The road almost immediately branched into two, of which one led toQuimper and the other to Quimperle. Selecting the latter, she went downinto the hollow of a valley, climbed up again and saw on her right, atthe corner of another road, a sign-post bearing the inscription,"Locriff, 3 kilometers."

  "This is the place," she said to herself.

  Nevertheless, after casting a glance around her, she was surprised notto find what she was looking for and wondered whether she hadmisunderstood her instructions.

  There was no one near her nor any one within sight, as far as the eyecould reach over the Breton country-side, with its tree-lined meadowsand undulating hills. Not far from the village, rising amid the buddinggreenery of spring, a small country house lifted its grey front, withthe shutters to all the windows closed. At twelve o'clock, theangelus-bells pealed through the air and were followed by complete peaceand silence.

  Veronique sat down on the short grass of a bank, took a letter from herpocket and smoothed out the many sheets, one by one.

  The first page was headed:

  "DUTREILLIS' AGENCY.

  _"Consulting Rooms._ _"Private Enquiries._ _"Absolute Discretion Guaranteed."_

  Next came an address:

  _"Madame Veronique,_ _"Dressmaker,_ _"BESANCON."_

  And the letter ran:

  "MADAM,

  "You will hardly believe the pleasure which it gave me to fulfill the two commissions which you were good enough to entrust to me in your last favour. I have never forgotten the conditions under which I was able, fourteen years ago, to give you my practical assistance at a time when your life was saddened by painful events. It was I who succeeded in obtaining all the facts relating to the death of your honoured father, M. Antoine d'Hergemont, and of your beloved son Francois. This was my first triumph in a career which was to afford so many other brilliant victories.

  "It was I also, you will remember, who, at your request and seeing how essential it was to save you from your husband's hatred and, if I may add, his love, took the necessary steps to secure your admission to the Carmelite convent. Lastly, it was I who, when your retreat to the convent had shown you that a life of religion did not agree with your temperament, arranged for you a modest occupation as a dressmaker at Besancon, far from the towns where the years of your childhood and the months of your marriage had been spent. You had the inclination and the need to work in order to live and to escape your thoughts. You were bound to succeed; and you succeeded.

  "And now let me come to the fact, to the two facts in hand.

  "To begin with your first question: what has become, amid the whirlwind of war, of your husband, Alexis Vorski, a Pole by birth, according to his papers, and the son of a king, according to his own statement? I will be brief. After being suspected at the commencement of the war and imprisoned in an internment-camp near Carpentras, Vorski managed to escape, went to Switzerland, returned to France and was re-arrested, accused of spying and convicted of being a German. At the moment when it seemed inevitable that he would be sentenced to death, he escaped for the second time, disappeared in the Forest of Fontainebleau and in the end was stabbed by some person unknown.

  "I am telling you the story quite crudely, Madam, well knowing your contempt for this person, who had deceived you abominably, and knowing also that you have learnt most of these facts from the newspapers, though you have not been able to verify their absolute genuineness.

  "Well, the proofs exist. I have seen them. There is no doubt left. Alexis Vorski lies buried at Fontainebleau.

  "Permit me, in passing, Madam, to remark upon the strangeness of this death. You will remember the curious prophecy about Vorski which you mentioned to me. Vorski, whose undoubted intelligence and exceptional energy were spoilt by an insincere and superstitious mind, readily preyed upon by hallucinations and terrors, had been greatly impressed by the prediction which overhung his life and which he had heard from the lips of several people who specialize in the occult sciences:

  "'Vorski, son of a king, you will die by the hand of a friend and your wife will be crucified!'

  "I smile, Madam, as I write the last word. Crucified! Crucifixion is a torture which is pretty well out of fashion; and I am easy as regards yourself. But what do you think of the dagger-stroke which Vorski received in accordance with the mysterious orders of destiny?

  "But enough of reflections. I now come . . ."

  Veronique dropped the letter for a moment into her lap. M. Dutreillis'pretentious phrasing and familiar pleasantries wounded her fastidiousreserve. Also she was obsessed by the tragic image of Alexis Vorski. Ashiver of anguish passed through her at the hideous memory of that man.She mastered herself, however, and read on:

  "I now come to my other commission, Madam, in your eyes the more important of the two, because all the rest belongs to the past.

  "Let us state the facts precisely. Three weeks ago, on one of those rare occasions when you consented to break through the praiseworthy monotony of your existence, on a Thursday evening when you took your assistants to a cinema-theatre, you were struck by a really incomprehensible detail. The principal film, entitled 'A Breton Legend,' represented a scene which occurred, in the course of a pilgrimage, outside a little deserted road-side hut which had nothing to do with the action. The hut was obviously there by accident. But something really extraordinary attracted your attention. On the tarred boards of the old door were three letters, drawn by hand: 'V. d'H.,' and those three letters were precisely your signature before you were married, the initials with which you used to sign your intimate letters and which you have not used once during the last fourteen years! Veronique d'Hergemont! There was no mistake possible. Two capitals separated by the small 'd' and the apostrophe. And, what is more, the bar of the letter 'H.', carried back under the three letters, served as a flourish, exactly as it used to do with you!

  "It was the stupefaction due to this surprising coincidence that decided you, Madam, to invoke my assistance. It was yours without the asking. And you knew, without any telling, that it would be effective.

  "As you anticipated, Madam, I have succeeded. And here again I will be brief.

  "What you must do, Madam, is to take the night express from Paris which brings you the next morning to Quimperle. From there, drive to Le Faouet. If you have time, before or after your luncheon, pay a visit to the very interesting Chapel of St. Barbe, which stands perched on the most fantastic site and which gave rise to the 'Breton Legend' film. Then go along the Quimper road on foot. At the end of the first ascent, a little way short of the parish-road which leads to Locriff, you will find, in a semicircle surrounded by trees, the deserted hut with the inscription. It has nothing remarkable about it. The inside is empty. It has not even a floor. A rotten plank serves as a bench. The roof consists of a worm-eaten framework, which admits the rain. Once more, there is no doubt that it was shee
r accident that placed it within the range of the cinematograph. I will end by adding that the 'Breton Legend' film was taken in September last, which means that the inscription is at least eight months old.

  "That is all, Madam. My two commissions are completed. I am too modest to describe to you the efforts and the ingenious means which I employed in order to accomplish them in so short a time, but for which you will certainly think the sum of five hundred francs, which is all that I propose to charge you for the work done, almost ridiculous.

  "I beg to remain, "Madam, &c."

  Veronique folded up the letter and sat for a few minutes turning overthe impressions which it aroused in her, painful impressions, like allthose revived by the horrible days of her marriage. One in particularhad survived and was still as powerful as at the time when she tried toescape it by taking refuge in the gloom of a convent. It was theimpression, in fact the certainty, that all her misfortunes, the deathof her father and the death of her son, were due to the fault which shehad committed in loving Vorski. True, she had fought against the man'slove and had not decided to marry him until she was obliged to, indespair and to save M. d'Hergemont from Vorski's vengeance.Nevertheless, she had loved that man. Nevertheless, at first, she hadturned pale under his glance: and this, which now seemed to her anunpardonable example of weakness, had left her with a remorse which timehad failed to weaken.

  "There," she said, "enough of dreaming. I have not come here to shedtears."

  The craving for information which had brought her from her retreat atBesancon restored her vigour; and she rose resolved to act.

  "A little way short of the parish-road which leads to Locriff . . . asemicircle surrounded by trees," said Dutreillis' letter. She hadtherefore passed the place. She quickly retraced her steps and at onceperceived, on the right, the clump of trees which had hidden the cabinfrom her eyes. She went nearer and saw it.

  It was a sort of shepherd's or road-labourer's hut, which was crumblingand falling to pieces under the action of the weather. Veronique went upto it and perceived that the inscription, worn by the rain and sun, wasmuch less clear than on the film. But the three letters were visible, aswas the flourish; and she even distinguished, underneath, somethingwhich M. Dutreillis had not observed, a drawing of an arrow and anumber, the number 9.

  Her emotion increased. Though no attempt had been made to imitate theactual form of her signature, it certainly was her signature as a girl.And who could have affixed it there, on a deserted cabin, in thisBrittany where she had never been before?

  Veronique no longer had a friend in the world. Thanks to a succession ofcircumstances, the whole of her past girlhood had, so to speak,disappeared with the death of those whom she had known and loved. Thenhow was it possible for the recollection of her signature to surviveapart from her and those who were dead and gone? And, above all, why wasthe inscription here, at this spot? What did it mean?

  Veronique walked round the cabin. There was no other mark visible thereor on the surrounding trees. She remembered that M. Dutreillis hadopened the door and had seen nothing inside. Nevertheless she determinedto make certain that he was not mistaken.

  The door was closed with a mere wooden latch, which moved on a screw.She lifted it; and, strange to say, she had to make an effort, not aphysical so much as a moral effort, an effort of will, to pull the doortowards her. It seemed to her that this little act was about to usherher into a world of facts and events which she unconsciously dreaded.

  "Well," she said, "what's preventing me?"

  She gave a sharp pull.

  A cry of horror escaped her. There was a man's dead body in the cabin.And, at the moment, at the exact second when she saw the body, shebecame aware of a peculiar characteristic: one of the dead man's handswas missing.

  It was an old man, with a long, grey, fan-shaped beard and long whitehair falling about his neck. The blackened lips and a certain colour ofthe swollen skin suggested to Veronique that he might have beenpoisoned, for no trace of an injury showed on his body, except the arm,which had been severed clean above the wrist, apparently some daysbefore. His clothes were those of a Breton peasant, clean, but verythreadbare. The corpse was seated on the ground, with the head restingagainst the bench and the legs drawn up.

  These were all things which Veronique noted in a sort of unconsciousnessand which were rather to reappear in her memory at a later date, for, atthe moment, she stood there all trembling, with her eyes staring beforeher, and stammering:

  "A dead body! . . . A dead body! . . ."

  Suddenly she reflected that she was perhaps mistaken and that the manwas not dead. But, on touching his forehead, she shuddered at thecontact of his icy skin.

  Nevertheless this movement roused her from her torpor. She resolved toact and, since there was no one in the immediate neighbourhood, to goback to Le Faouet and inform the authorities. She first examined thecorpse for any clue which could tell her its identity.

  The pockets were empty. There were no marks on the clothes or linen.But, when she shifted the body a little in order to make her search, itcame about that the head drooped forward, dragging with it the trunk,which fell over the legs, thus uncovering the lower side of the bench.

  Under this bench, she perceived a roll consisting of a sheet of verythin drawing-paper, crumpled, buckled and almost wrung into a twist. Shepicked up the roll and unfolded it. But she had not finished doing sobefore her hands began to tremble and she stammered:

  "Oh, God! . . . Oh, my God! . . ."

  She summoned all her energies to try and enforce upon herself the calmneeded to look with eyes that could see and a brain that couldunderstand.

  The most that she could do was to stand there for a few seconds. Andduring those few seconds, through an ever-thickening mist that seemed toshroud her eyes, she was able to make out a drawing in red, representingfour women crucified on four tree-trunks.

  And, in the foreground, the first woman, the central figure, with thebody stark under its clothing and the features distorted with the mostdreadful pain, but still recognizable, the crucified woman was herself!Beyond the least doubt, it was she herself, Veronique d'Hergemont!

  Besides, above the head, the top of the post bore, after the ancientcustom, a scroll with a plainly legible inscription. And this was thethree initials, underlined with the flourish, of Veronique's maidenname, "V. d'H.", Veronique d'Hergemont.

  A spasm ran through her from head to foot. She drew herself up, turnedon her heel and, reeling out of the cabin, fell on the grass in a deadfaint.

  * * * * *

  Veronique was a tall, energetic, healthy woman, with a wonderfullybalanced mind; and hitherto no trial had been able to affect her finemoral sanity or her splendid physical harmony. It needed exceptional andunforeseen circumstances such as these, added to the fatigue of twonights spent in railway-travelling, to produce this disorder in hernerves and will.

  It did not last more than two or three minutes, at the end of which hermind once more became lucid and courageous. She stood up, went back tothe cabin, picked up the sheet of drawing-paper and, certainly withunspeakable anguish, but this time with eyes that saw and a brain thatunderstood, looked at it.

  She first examined the details, those which seemed insignificant, orwhose significance at least escaped her. On the left was a narrow columnof fifteen lines, not written, but composed of letters of no definiteformation, the down-strokes of which were all of the same length, theobject being evidently merely to fill up. However, in various places, afew words were visible. And Veronique read:

  "Four women crucified."

  Lower down:

  "Thirty coffins."

  And the bottom line of all ran:

  "The God-Stone which gives life or death."

  The whole of this column was surrounded by a frame consisting of twoperfectly straight lines, one ruled in black, the other in red ink; andthere
was also, likewise in red, above it, a sketch of two sicklesfastened together with a sprig of mistletoe under the outline of acoffin.

  The right-hand side, by far the more important, was filled with thedrawing, a drawing in red chalk, which gave the whole sheet, with itsadjacent column of explanations, the appearance of a page, or rather ofa copy of a page, from some large, ancient illuminated book, in whichthe subjects were treated rather in the primitive style, with a completeignorance of the rules of drawing.

  And it represented four crucified women. Three of them showed indiminishing perspective against the horizon. They wore Breton costumesand their heads were surmounted by caps which were likewise Breton butof a special fashion that pointed to local usage and consisted chieflyof a large black bow, the two wings of which stood out as in the bows ofthe Alsatian women. And in the middle of the page was the dreadful thingfrom which Veronique could not take her terrified eyes. It was theprincipal cross, the trunk of a tree stripped of its lower branches,with the woman's two arms stretched to right and left of it.

  The hands and feet were not nailed but were fastened by cords whichwere wound as far as the shoulders and the upper part of the tied legs.Instead of the Breton costume, the woman wore a sort of winding-sheetwhich fell to the ground and lengthened the slender outline of a bodyemaciated by suffering.

  The expression on the face was harrowing, an expression of resignedmartyrdom and melancholy grace. And it was certainly Veronique's face,especially as it looked when she was twenty years of age and asVeronique remembered seeing it at those gloomy hours when a woman gazesin a mirror at her hopeless eyes and her overflowing tears.

  And about the head was the very same wave of her thick hair, flowing tothe waist in symmetrical curves:

  And above it the inscription, "V. d'H."

  Veronique long stayed thinking, questioning the past and gazing into thedarkness in order to link the actual facts with the memory of her youth.But her mind remained without a glimmer of light. Of the words which shehad read, of the drawing which she had seen, nothing whatever assumedthe least meaning for her or seemed susceptible of the leastexplanation.

  She examined the sheet of paper again and again. Then, slowly, stillpondering on it, she tore it into tiny pieces and threw them to thewind. When the last scrap had been carried away, her decision was taken.She pushed back the man's body, closed the door and walked quicklytowards the village, in order to ensure that the incident should havethe legal conclusion which was fitting for the moment.

  But, when she returned an hour later with the mayor of Le Faouet, therural constable and a whole group of sightseers attracted by herstatements, the cabin was empty. The corpse had disappeared.

  And all this was so strange, Veronique felt so plainly that, in thedisordered condition of her ideas, it was impossible for her to answerthe questions put to her, or to dispel the suspicions and doubts whichthese people might and must entertain of the truth of her evidence, thecause of her presence and even her very sanity, that she forthwithceased to make any effort or struggle. The inn-keeper was there. Sheasked him which was the nearest village that she would reach byfollowing the road and if, by so doing, she would come to arailway-station which would enable her to return to Paris. She retainedthe names of Scaer and Rosporden, ordered a carriage to bring her bagand overtake her on the road and set off, protected against any illfeeling by her great air of elegance and by her grave beauty.

  She set off, so to speak, at random. The road was long, miles and mileslong. But such was her haste to have done with these incomprehensibleevents and to recover her tranquillity and to forget what had happenedthat she walked with great strides, quite oblivious of the fact thatthis wearisome exertion was superfluous, since she had a carriagefollowing her.

  She went up hill and down dale and hardly thought at all, refusing toseek the solution of all the riddles that were put to her. It was thepast which was reascending to the surface of her life; and she washorribly afraid of that past, which extended from her abduction byVorski to the death of her father and her child. She wanted to think ofnothing but the simple, humble life which she had contrived to lead atBesancon. There were no sorrows there, no dreams, no memories; and shedid not doubt but that, amid the little daily habits which enfolded herin the modest house of her choice, she would forget the deserted cabin,the mutilated body of the man and the dreadful drawing with itsmysterious inscription.

  But, a little while before she came to the big market-town of Scaer, asshe heard the bell of a horse trotting behind her, she saw, at thejunction of the road that led to Rosporden, a broken wall, one of theremnants of a half-ruined house.

  And on this broken wall, above an arrow and the number 10, she againread the fateful inscription, "V. d'H."