The Mystery of Choice. Chambers Robert William

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СКАЧАТЬ sleep, for I feared that the Purple Emperor might begin to abuse Lys. I lay restlessly tossing among the sheets until I could stay there no longer. I did not dress entirely; I merely slipped on a pair of chaussons and sabots, a pair of knickerbockers, a jersey, and a cap. Then, loosely tying a handkerchief about my throat, I went down the worm-eaten stairs and out into the moonlit road. There was a candle flaring in the Purple Emperor's window, but I could not see him.

      "He's probably dead drunk," I thought, and looked up at the window where, three years before, I had first seen Lys.

      "Asleep, thank Heaven!" I muttered, and wandered out along the road. Passing the small cottage of the Red Admiral, I saw that it was dark, but the door was open. I stepped inside the hedge to shut it, thinking, in case Yves Terrec should be roving about, his father would lose whatever he had left.

      Then, after fastening the door with a stone, I wandered on through the dazzling Breton moonlight. A nightingale was singing in a willow swamp below, and from the edge of the mere, among the tall swamp grasses, myriads of frogs chanted a bass chorus.

      When I returned, the eastern sky was beginning to lighten, and across the meadows on the cliffs, outlined against the paling horizon, I saw a seaweed gatherer going to his work among the curling breakers on the coast. His long rake was balanced on his shoulder, and the sea wind carried his song across the meadows to me:

      St. Gildas!

      St. Gildas!

      Pray for us,

      Shelter us,

      Us who toil in the sea.

      Passing the shrine at the entrance of the village, I took off my cap and knelt in prayer to Our Lady of Faöuet; and if I neglected myself in that prayer, surely I believed Our Lady of Faöuet would be kinder to Lys. It is said that the shrine casts white shadows. I looked, but saw only the moonlight. Then very peacefully I went to bed again, and was only awakened by the clank of sabres and the trample of horses in the road below my window.

      "Good gracious!" I thought, "it must be eleven o'clock, for there are the gendarmes from Quimperlé."

      I looked at my watch; it was only half-past eight, and as the gendarmes made their rounds every Thursday at eleven, I wondered what had brought them out so early to St. Gildas.

      "Of course," I grumbled, rubbing my eyes, "they are after Terrec," and I jumped into my limited bath.

      Before I was completely dressed I heard a timid knock, and opening my door, razor in hand, stood astonished and silent. Lys, her blue eyes wide with terror, leaned on the threshold.

      "My darling!" I cried, "what on earth is the matter?" But she only clung to me, panting like a wounded sea gull. At last, when I drew her into the room and raised her face to mine, she spoke in a heart-breaking voice:

      "Oh, Dick! they are going to arrest you, but I will die before I believe one word of what they say. No, don't ask me," and she began to sob desperately.

      When I found that something really serious was the matter, I flung on my coat and cap, and, slipping one arm about her waist, went down the stairs and out into the road. Four gendarmes sat on their horses in front of the café door; beyond them, the entire population of St. Gildas gaped, ten deep.

      "Hello, Durand!" I said to the brigadier, "what the devil is this I hear about arresting me?"

      "It's true, mon ami," replied Durand with sepulchral sympathy. I looked him over from the tip of his spurred boots to his sulphur-yellow sabre belt, then upward, button by button, to his disconcerted face.

      "What for?" I said scornfully. "Don't try any cheap sleuth work on me! Speak up, man, what's the trouble?"

      The Purple Emperor, who sat in the doorway staring at me, started to speak, but thought better of it and got up and went into the house. The gendarmes rolled their eyes mysteriously and looked wise.

      "Come, Durand," I said impatiently, "what's the charge?"

      "Murder," he said in a faint voice.

      "What!" I cried incredulously. "Nonsense! Do I look like a murderer? Get off your horse, you stupid, and tell me who's murdered."

      Durand got down, looking very silly, and came up to me, offering his hand with a propitiatory grin.

      "It was the Purple Emperor who denounced you! See, they found your handkerchief at his door – "

      "Whose door, for Heaven's sake?" I cried.

      "Why, the Red Admiral's!"

      "The Red Admiral's? What has he done?"

      "Nothing – he's only been murdered."

      I could scarcely believe my senses, although they took me over to the little stone cottage and pointed out the blood-spattered room. But the horror of the thing was that the corpse of the murdered man had disappeared, and there only remained a nauseating lake of blood on the stone floor, in the centre of which lay a human hand. There was no doubt as to whom the hand belonged, for everybody who had ever seen the Red Admiral knew that the shrivelled bit of flesh which lay in the thickening blood was the hand of the Red Admiral. To me it looked like the severed claw of some gigantic bird.

      "Well," I said, "there's been murder committed. Why don't you do something?"

      "What?" asked Durand.

      "I don't know. Send for the Commissaire."

      "He's at Quimperlé. I telegraphed."

      "Then send for a doctor, and find out how long this blood has been coagulating."

      "The chemist from Quimperlé is here; he's a doctor."

      "What does he say?"

      "He says that he doesn't know."

      "And who are you going to arrest?" I inquired, turning away from the spectacle on the floor.

      "I don't know," said the brigadier solemnly; "you are denounced by the Purple Emperor, because he found your handkerchief at the door when he went out this morning."

      "Just like a pig-headed Breton!" I exclaimed, thoroughly angry. "Did he not mention Yves Terrec?"

      "No."

      "Of course not," I said. "He overlooked the fact that Terrec tried to shoot his father last night, and that I took away his gun. All that counts for nothing when he finds my handkerchief at the murdered man's door."

      "Come into the café," said Durand, much disturbed, "we can talk it over, there. Of course, Monsieur Darrel, I have never had the faintest idea that you were the murderer!"

      The four gendarmes and I walked across the road to the Groix Inn and entered the café. It was crowded with Bretons, smoking, drinking, and jabbering in half a dozen dialects, all equally unsatisfactory to a civilized ear; and I pushed through the crowd to where little Max Fortin, the chemist of Quimperlé, stood smoking a vile cigar.

      "This is a bad business," he said, shaking hands and offering me the mate to his cigar, which I politely declined.

      "Now, Monsieur Fortin," I said, "it appears that the Purple Emperor found my handkerchief near the murdered man's door this morning, and so he concludes" – here I glared at the Purple Emperor – "that I am the assassin. I will now ask him a question," and turning on him suddenly, I shouted, "What were you doing СКАЧАТЬ