The Tremendous Event Read online

  CHAPTER VII

  LYNX-EYE

  "What do you say to this, my boy? Did I prophesy it all, or did I not?Read my pamphlet on _The Channel in the Year 2000_ and you'll see. Andthen remember all I told you the other morning, at Newhaven station.Well, there you are: the two countries are joined together as theywere once before, in the Eocene epoch."

  Awakened with a start by Old Sandstone, Simon, with eyes still heavywith slumber, gazed vacantly at the hotel bed-room in which he hadbeen sleeping, at his old professor, walking to and fro, and atanother person, who was sitting in the dark and who seemed to be anacquaintance of Old Sandstone's.

  "Ah!" yawned Simon. "But what's the time?"

  "Seven o'clock in the evening, my son."

  "What? Seven o'clock? Have I been sleeping since last night's meetingat the Casino?"

  "Rather! I was strolling about this morning, when I heard of youradventure. 'Simon Dubosc! I know him.' said I. I ran like mad. Irapped on the door. I came in. Nothing would wake you. I went away,came back again and so on, until I decided to sit down by your bedsideand wait."

  Simon leapt out of bed. New clothes and clean linen had been laid outin the bathroom; and he saw, hanging on the wall, his jacket, the samewith which he had covered the bare shoulders of the young woman whomhe had released.

  "Who brought that?" he asked.

  "That? What?" asked Old Sandstone.

  Simon turned to him.

  "Tell me, professor, did any one come to this room while you werehere?"

  "Yes, lots of people. They came in as they liked: admirers, idlesightseers. . . ."

  "Did a woman come in?"

  "Upon my word, I didn't notice. . . . Why?"

  "Why?" replied Simon, explaining. "Because last night, while I wasasleep, I several times had the impression that a woman came up to meand bent over me. . . ."

  Old Sandstone shrugged his shoulders:

  "You've been dreaming, my boy. When one's badly overtired, one'slikely to have those nightmares. . . ."

  "But it wasn't in the very least a nightmare!" said Simon, laughing.

  "It's stuff and nonsense, in any case!" cried Old Sandstone. "Whatdoes it matter? There's only one thing that matters: this suddenjoining up of the two coasts . . . ! It's fairly tremendous, what?What do you think of it? It's more than a bridge thrown from shore toshore. It's more than a tunnel. It's a flesh-and-blood tie, apermanent junction, an isthmus, what? The Sussex Isthmus, the Isthmusof Normandy, they've already christened it."

  Simon jested:

  "Oh, an isthmus! . . . A mere causeway, at most!"

  "You're drivelling!" cried Old Sandstone. "Don't you know whathappened last night? Why, of course not, the fellow knows nothing! Hewas asleep! . . . Then you didn't realize that there was anotherearthquake? Quite a slight one, but still . . . an earthquake? No? Youdidn't wake up? In that case, my boy, listen to the incredible truth,which surpasses what any one could have foreseen. It's no longer aquestion of the strip of earth which you crossed from Dieppe toHastings. That was the first attempt, just a little trial phenomenon.But since then . . . oh, since then, my boy . . . you're listening,aren't you? Well, there, from Fecamp to Cape Gris-nez in France andfrom the west of Brighton to Folkestone in England: all that part, myboy, is now one solid mass. Yes, it forms a permanent junction,seventy to ninety miles wide, a bit of exposed ground equivalent atleast to two large French departments or two fair-sized Englishcounties. Nature hasn't done badly . . . for a few hours' work! Whatsay you?"

  Simon listened in amazement:

  "Is it possible? Are you sure? But then it will be the cause ofunspeakable losses. Think: all the coast-towns ruined . . . and trade. . . navigation. . . ."

  And Simon, thinking of his father and the vessels locked up in Dieppeharbour, repeated:

  "Are you quite sure?"

  "Why, of course I am!" said Old Sandstone, to whom all theseconsiderations were utterly devoid of interest. "Of course I'm sure! Ahundred telegrams, from all sides, vouch for the fact. What's more,read the evening papers. Oh, I give you my word, it's a blessedrevolution! . . . The earthquake? The victims? We hardly mention them!. . . Your Franco-English raid? An old story! No, there's only onething that matters to-day, on this side of the Channel: England is nolonger an Island; she forms part of the European continent; she isriveted on to France!"

  "This," said Simon, "is one of the greatest facts in history!"

  "It's _the_ greatest, my son. Since the world has been a world andsince men have been gathered into nations, there has been no physicalphenomenon of greater importance than this. And to think that Ipredicted the whole thing, the causes and the effects, the causeswhich I am the only one to know!"

  "And what are they?" asked Simon. "How is it that I was able to pass?How is it. . . ."

  Old Sandstone checked him with a gesture which reminded Simon of theway in which his former lecturer used to begin his explanations atcollege; and the old codger, taking a pen and a sheet of paper,proceeded:

  "Do you know what a fault is? Of course not! Or a horst? Ditto! Oh, ageology-lesson at Dieppe college was so many hours wasted! Well, lendme your ears, young Dubosc! I will be brief and to the point. Theterrestrial rind--that is, the crust which surrounds the internalfire-ball, of solidified elements and eruptive or sedimentaryrocks--consists throughout of layers superposed like the pages of abook. Imagine forces of some kind, acting laterally, to compress thoselayers. There will be corrugations, sometimes actual fractures, thetwo sides of which, sliding one against the other, will be eitherraised or depressed. Faults is the name which we give to the fracturesthat penetrate the terrestrial shell and separate two masses of rock,one of which slides over the plane of fracture. The fault, therefore,reveals an edge, a lower lip produced by the subsidence of the soil,and an upper lip produced by an elevation. Now it happens thatsuddenly, after thousands and thousands of years, this upper lip,under the action of irresistible tangential forces, will rise, shootupwards, and form considerable outthrows, to which we give the name ofhorsts. This is what has just taken place. . . . There exists inFrance, marked on the geological charts, a fault known as the Rouenfault, which is an important dislocation of the Paris basin. Parallelto the corrugations of the soil, which have wrinkled the cretaceousand tertiary deposits in this region from north-east to north-west, itruns from Versailles to seventy-five miles beyond Rouen. At Maromme,we lose it. But I, Simon, have found it again in the quarries aboveLongueville and also not far from Dieppe. And lastly I have found it. . . where do you think? In England, at Eastbourne, between Hastingsand Newhaven! Same composition, same disposition. There was noquestion of a mistake. It ran from France to England! It ran under theChannel. . . . Ah, how I have studied it, my fault, Old Sandstone'sfault, as I used to call it! How I have sounded it, deciphered itsmeanings, questioned it, analysed it! And then, suddenly in 1912, someseismic shocks affected the table-lands of the Seine-Inferieure andthe Somme and acted in an abnormal manner as I was able to prove--onthe tides! Shocks in Normandy! In the Somme! Right out at sea! Do yougrasp the strangeness of such a phenomenon and how, on the other hand,it acquired a significant value from the very fact that it took placealong a fault? Might we not suppose that there were stresses alongthis fault, that captive forces were seeking to escape through theearth's crust and attacking the points of least resistance, whichhappened to lie precisely along the lines of the faults? . . . You maycall it an improbable theory. Perhaps so; but at any rate it seemedworth verifying. And I did verify it. I made diving-experiments withinsight of the French coast. At my fourth descent, in the Ridin deDieppe, where the depth is only thirty feet, I discovered traces of aneruption in the two blocks of a fault all of whose elements talliedwith those of the Anglo-Norman fault . . . That was all I wanted toknow. There was nothing more to do but wait . . . a century or two. . . or else a few hours. . . . Meanwhile it was patent to me thatsooner or later the fragile obstacle opposed to the internal energieswould break down and the great upheaval would come to pass
. It hascome to pass."

  Simon listened with growing interest. Old Sandstone illustrated hislecture with diagrams drawn with broad strokes of the pen and smearedwith blots which his sleeve or fingers generously spread all over thepaper. Drops of sweat also played their part, falling from hisforehead, for Old Sandstone was always given to perspiring copiously.

  He repeated:

  "It has come to pass, with a whole train of precursory or concomitantphenomena: submarine eruptions, whirlpools, boats and ships hurledinto the air and drawn under by the most terrible suction; and thenseismic tremors, more or less marked, cyclones, waterspouts and thedevil's own mischief; and then a cataclysm of an earthquake. Andimmediately afterwards, indeed at the same moment, the shooting up ofone lip of the fault, projecting from one coast to the other, over awidth of seventy or eighty miles. And then, on the top of it, you,Simon Dubosc, crossing the Channel at a stride. And this perhaps wasnot the least remarkable fact, my boy, in the whole story."

  Simon was silent for some time. Then he said:

  "So far, so good. You have explained the emergence of the narrow beltof earth which I walked along and whose width I measured with my eyes,I might say, incessantly. But how do you explain the emergence of thisimmense region which now fills the Straits of Dover and part of theChannel?"

  "Perhaps the Anglo-Norman fault had ramifications in the affectedareas?"

  "I repeat, I saw only a narrow belt of land."

  "That is to say, you saw and crossed only the highest crests of theupheaved region, crests forming a ridge. But this region was thrown upaltogether; and you must have noticed that the waves, instead ofsubsiding, were rolling over miles of beach."

  "That is so. Nevertheless the sea was there and is there no longer."

  "It is there no longer because it has receded. Phenomena of thisextent produce reactions beyond their immediate field of activity andgive rise to other phenomena, which in turn react upon the first. And,if this dislocation of the bottom of the Channel has raised one part,it may very well, in some other submarine part, have provokedsubsidences and ruptures by which the sea has escaped through thecrust. Observe that a reduction of level of six to nine feet wasenough to turn those miles of barely covered beach into permanent dryland."

  "A supposition, my dear professor."

  "Nothing of the sort!" cried Old Sandstone, striking the table withhis fists. "Nothing of the sort! I have positive evidence of thisalso; and I shall publish all my proofs at a suitable moment, whichwill not be long delayed."

  He drew from his pocket the famous locked wallet, whose grease-stainedmorocco had caught Simon's eye at Newhaven, and declared:

  "The truth will emerge from this, my lad, from this wallet in which mynotes have been accumulating, four hundred and fifteen notes whichmust needs serve for reference. For, now that the phenomena has cometo pass and all its mysterious causes have been wiped out by theupheaval, people will never know anything except what I have observedby personal experiments. They will put forward theories, drawinferences, form conclusions. _But they will not see._ Now I . . .have _seen_."

  Simon, who was only half listening, interrupted:

  "In the meantime, my dear professor, I am hungry. Will you have somedinner?"

  "No, thanks. I must catch the train to Dover and cross to-night. Itseems the Calais-Dover boats are running again; and I have no time tolose if I'm to publish an article and take up a definite position." Heglanced at his watch. "Phew! It's jolly late! . . . If only I don'tlose my train! . . . See you soon, my boy!" . . .

  He departed.

  The other person sitting in the dark had not stirred during thisconversation and, to Simon's great astonishment, did not stir eitherafter Old Sandstone had taken his leave. Simon, at switching on thelight, was amazed to find himself face to face with an individualresembling in every respect the man whose body he had seen near thewreck on the previous evening. There was the same brick-red face, thesame prominent cheek-bones, the same long hair, the same buff leatherclothing. This man, however, was very much younger, with a noblebearing and a handsome face.

  "A true Indian chief," thought Simon, "and it seems to me that I haveseen him before. . . . Yes, I have certainly seen him somewhere. Butwhere? And when?"

  The stranger was silent. Simon asked him:

  "What can I do for you, please?"

  The other had risen to his feet. He went to the little table on whichSimon had emptied his pockets, took up the coin with the head ofNapoleon I. which Simon had found the day before and, speakingexcellent French, but in a voice whose guttural tone harmonized withhis appearance, said:

  "You picked up this coin yesterday, on your way here, near a deadbody, did you not?"

  His guess was so correct and so unexpected that Simon could butconfirm it:

  "I did . . . near a man who had just been stabbed to death."

  "Perhaps you were able to trace the murderer's footprints?"

  "Yes."

  "They were prints of bathing-shoes or tennis-shoes, with patternedrubber soles?"

  "Yes, yes!" said Simon, more and more puzzled. "But how do you knowthat?"

  "Well, sir," continued the man whom Simon silently called the Indian,without replying to the question, "Well, sir, yesterday one of myfriends, Badiarinos by name, and his niece Dolores, wishing to explorethe new land after the convulsions of the morning, discovered, in theharbour, amid the ruins, a narrow channel which communicated with thesea and was still free at that moment. A man who was getting into aboat offered to take my friend and his niece along with him. Afterrowing for some time, they saw several large wrecks and landed.Badiarinos left his niece in the boat and went off in one direction,while their companion took another. An hour later, the latter returnedalone, carrying an old broken cash-box with gold escaping from it.Seeing blood on one of his sleeves, Dolores became alarmed and triedto get out of the boat. He flung himself upon her and, in spite of herdesperate resistance, succeeded in tying her up. He took the oarsagain and turned back along the new coast-line. On the way, he decidedto get rid of her and threw her overboard. She had the good luck tofall on a sandbank which became uncovered a few minutes later andwhich was soon joined to the mainland. For all that, she would havebeen dead if you had not released her."

  "Yes," murmured Simon, "a Spaniard, isn't she? Very beautiful. . . . Isaw her again at the casino."

  "We spent the whole evening," continued the Indian, in the sameimpassive tones, "hunting for the murderer, at the meeting in thecasino, in the bars of the hotels, in the public-houses, everywhere.This morning we began again . . . and I came here, wishing also tobring you the coat which you had lent to my friend's niece."

  "It was you, then? . . ."

  "Now, on entering the corridor upon which your room opens, I heardsomeone groaning and I saw, a little way ahead of me--the corridor isvery dark--I saw a man dragging himself along the floor, wounded,half-dead. A servant and I carried him into one of the rooms which arebeing used for infirmary purposes; and I could see that he had beenstabbed between the shoulders . . . as my friend was! Was I on thetrack of the murderer? It was difficult to make enquiries in thisgreat hotel, crammed with the mixed crowd of people who have come herefor shelter. At last I discovered that, a little before nine o'clock,a lady's maid, coming from outside, with a letter in her hand, hadasked the porter for M. Simon Dubosc. The porter replied, 'Secondfloor, room 44.'"

  "But I haven't had that letter!" Simon remarked.

  "The porter, luckily for you, mistook the number. You're in room 43."

  "And what became of it? Who sent it?"

  "Here is a piece of the envelope which I picked up," replied theIndian. "You can still make out a seal with Lord Bakefield's arms. SoI went to Battle House."

  "And you saw . . . ?"

  "Lord Bakefield, his wife and his daughter had left for London thismorning, by motor. But I saw the maid, the one who had been to thehotel with a letter for you from her mistress. As she was goingupstairs, she was overtaken by a gent
leman who said, 'M. Simon Duboscis asleep and said I was to let no one in. I'll give him the letter.'The maid therefore handed him the letter and accepted a tip of alouis. Here's the louis. It's one with the head of Napoleon I. and thedate 1807 and is therefore precisely similar to the coin which youpicked up near my friend's body."

  "And then?" asked Simon, anxiously. "Then this man . . . ?"

  "The man, having read the letter, went and knocked at room 44, whichis the next room to yours. Your neighbour opened the door and wasseized by the throat, while the murderer, with his free arm, drove adagger into his neck, above the shoulders."

  "Do you mean to say that he was stabbed instead of me? . . ."

  "Yes, instead of you. But he is not dead. They will pull him through."

  Simon was stunned.

  "It's dreadful!" he muttered. "Again, that particular way of striking!. . ."

  After a short pause, he asked:

  "Do you know nothing of the contents of the letter?"

  "From some words exchanged by Lord Bakefield and his daughter the maidgathered that they were discussing the wreck of the _Queen Mary_, thesteamer on which Miss Bakefield had been shipwrecked the other day andwhich must be lying high and dry by now. Miss Bakefield appears tohave lost a miniature."

  "Yes," said Simon, thoughtfully, "yes, I dare say. But it is mostdistressing that this letter was not placed in my own hands. The maidought never to have given it up."

  "Why should she have been suspicious?"

  "What! Of the first person she met?"

  "But she knew him."

  "She knew this man?"

  "Certainly. She had often seen him at Lord Bakefield's; he is afrequent visitor to the house."

  "Then she was able to give you his name?"

  "She told me his name."

  "Well?"

  "His name's Rolleston."

  Simon gave a start.

  "Rolleston!" he exclaimed. "But that's impossible! . . . Rolleston!What madness! . . . What's the fellow like? Give me a description ofhim."

  "The man whom the maid and I saw is very tall, which enables him tobend over his victims and stab them from above between the shoulders.He is thin . . . stoops a little . . . and he's very pale. . . ."

  "Stop!" ordered Simon, impressed by this description, which was thatof Edward. "Stop! . . . The man is a friend of mine and I'll answerfor him as I would for myself. Rolleston a murderer! What nonsense!"

  And Simon broke into a nervous laugh, while the Indian, stillimpassive, resumed:

  "Among other matters, the maid told me of a public-house, frequentedby rather doubtful people, where Rolleston, a great whiskey-drinker,was a familiar customer. This information was found to be correct.The barman, whom I tipped lavishly, told me that Rolleston had justbeen there, at about twelve o'clock, that he had enlisted half-a-dozenrascals who were game for anything and that the object of theexpedition was the wreck of the _Queen Mary_. I was now fullyinformed. The whole complicated business was beginning to have ameaning; and I at once made the necessary preparations, though I madea point of coming back here constantly, so that I might be presentwhen you awoke and tell you the news. Moreover, I took care that yourfriend, Mr. Sandstone, should watch over you; and I locked yourpocketbook, which was lying there for anybody to help himself from, inthis drawer. I took ten thousand francs out of it to finance ourcommon business."

  Simon was past being astonished by the doings of this strangeindividual. He could have taken all the notes with which thepocketbook was crammed; he had taken only ten. He was at least anhonest man.

  "Our business?" said Simon. "What do you mean by that?"

  "It will not take long to explain, M. Dubosc," replied the Indian,speaking as a man who knows beforehand that he has won his cause."It's this. Miss Bakefield lost, in the wreck of the _Queen Mary_, aminiature of the greatest value; and her letter was asking you to goand look for it. The letter was intercepted by Rolleston, who was thusinformed of the existence of this precious object and at the sametime, no doubt, became acquainted with Miss Bakefield's feelingstowards you. If we admit that Rolleston, as the maid declares, is inlove with Miss Bakefield, this in itself explains his pleasantintention of stabbing you. At any rate, after recruiting half-a-dozenblackguards of the worst kind, he set out for the wreck of the _QueenMary_. Are you going to leave the road clear for him, M. Dubosc?"

  Simon did not at once reply. He was thinking. How could he fail to bestruck by the logic of the facts that had come to his notice? Norcould he forget Rolleston's habits, his way of living, his love ofwhisky and his general extravagance. Nevertheless, he once moreasserted;

  "Rolleston is incapable of such a thing."

  "All right," said the Indian. "But certain men have set out to seizethe _Queen Mary_. Are you going to leave the road clear for them? I'mnot. I have the death of my friend Badiarinos to avenge. You haveMiss Bakefield's letter to bear in mind. We will make a start then.Everything is arranged. Four of my comrades have been notified. I havebought arms, horses and enough provisions to last us. I repeat,everything is ready. What are you going to do?"

  Simon threw off his dressing-gown and snatched at his clothes:

  "I shall come with you."

  "Oh, well," said the Indian smiling, "if you imagine that we canventure on the new land in the middle of the night! What about thewater-courses? And the quicksands? And all the rest of it? To saynothing of the devil's own fog! No, no, we shall start to-morrowmorning, at four o'clock. In the meantime, eat, M. Dubosc, and sleep."

  Simon protested:

  "Sleep! Why, I've done nothing else since yesterday!"

  "That's not enough. You have undergone the most terrible exertions;and this will be a trying expedition, very trying and very dangerous.You can take Lynx-Eye's word for it."

  "Lynx-Eye?"

  "Antonio or Lynx-Eye: those are my names," explained the Indian."Then to-morrow morning, M. Dubosc!"

  Simon obeyed like a child. Since they had been living for the past fewdays in such a topsy-turvy world, could he do better than follow theadvice of a man whom he had never seen, who was a Red Indian and whowas called Lynx-Eye?

  When he had had his meal, he glanced through an evening paper. Therewas an abundance of news, serious and contradictory. It was statedthat Southampton and Le Havre were blocked. It was said that theBritish fleet was immobilized at Portsmouth. The rivers, choked attheir mouths, were overflowing their banks. Everywhere all wasdisorder and confusion; communications were broken, harbours werefilled with sand, ships were lying on their sides, trade wasinterrupted; everywhere devastation reigned and famine and despair;the local authorities were impotent and the governments distraught.

  It was late when Simon at last fell into a troubled sleep.

  It seemed to him that after an hour or two some one opened the door ofhis room; and he remembered that he had not bolted it. Light footstepscrossed the carpet. Then he had the impression that some one bentover him and that this some one was a woman. A cool breath caressedhis face and in the darkness he divined a shadow moving quickly away.

  He tried to switch on the light, but there was no current.

  The shadow left the room. Was it the young woman whom he had released,who had come? But why should she have come?