The Golden Triangle by Maurice Leblanc (top rated books of all time TXT) 📕

Grégoire?⁠ ⁠… Essarès speaking.⁠ ⁠… Hullo!⁠ ⁠… Yes, I’m speaking from the Rue Raynouard.⁠ ⁠… There’s no time to lose.⁠ ⁠… Listen.⁠ ⁠…”

He sat down and went on:

“Look here. Mustapha’s dead. So is the colonel.⁠ ⁠… Damn it, don’t interrupt, or we’re done for!⁠ ⁠… Yes, done for; and you too.⁠ ⁠… Listen, they all came, the colonel, Bournef, the whole gang, and robbed me by means of violence and threats.⁠ ⁠… I finished the colonel, only he had written to the police, giving us all away. The letter will be delivered soon. So you understand, Bournef and his three ruffians are going to disappear. They’ll just run home and pack up their papers; and I reckon they’ll be with you in an hour, or two hours at most. It’s the refuge they’re sure to make for. They prepared it themselves, without suspecting that you and I know each other. So there’s no doubt about it. They’re sure to come.⁠ ⁠…”

Essarès stopped. He thought for a moment and resumed:

“You still have a second key to each of the rooms which they use as bedrooms? Is that so?⁠ ⁠… Good. And you have duplicates of the keys that open the cupboards in the walls of those rooms, haven’t you?⁠ ⁠… Capital. Well, as soon as they get to sleep, or rather as soon as you are certain that they are sound asleep, go in and search the cupboards. Each of them is bound to hide his share of the booty there. You’ll find it quite easily. It’s the four pocketbooks which you know of. Put them in your bag, clear out as fast as you can and join me.”

There was another pause. This time it was Essarès listening. He replied:

“What’s that you say? Rue Raynouard? Here? Join me here? Why, you must be mad! Do you imagine that I can stay now, after the colonel’s given me away? No, go and wait for me at the hotel, near the station. I shall be there by twelve o’clock or one in the afternoon, perhaps a little later. Don’t be uneasy. Have your lunch quietly and we’ll talk things over⁠ ⁠… Hullo! Did you hear?⁠ ⁠… Very well, I’ll see that everything’s all right. Goodbye for the present.”

The conversation was finished; and it looked as if Essarès, having taken all his measures to recover possession of the four million francs, had no further cause for anxiety. He hung up the receiver, went back to the lounge-chair in which he had been tortured, wheeled it round with its back to the fire, sat down, turned down the bottoms of his trousers and pulled on his socks and shoes, all a little painfully and accompanied by a few grimaces, but calmly, in the manner of a man who has no need to hurry.

Coralie kept her eyes fixed on his face.

“I really ought to go,” thought Captain Belval, who felt a trifle embarrassed at the thought of overhearing what the husband and wife were about to say.

Nevertheless he stayed. He was not comfortable in his mind on Coralie’s account.

Essarès fired the first shot:

“Well,” he asked, “what are you looking at me like that for?”

“So it’s true?” she murmured, maintaining her attitude of defiance. “You leave me no possibility of doubt?”

“Why should I lie?” he snarled. “I should not have telephoned in your hearing if I hadn’t been sure that you were here all the time.”

“I was up there.”

“Then you heard everything?”

“Yes.”

“And saw everything?”

“Yes.”

“And, seeing the torture which they inflicted on me and hearing my cries, you did nothing to defend me, to defend me against torture, against death!”

“No, for I knew the truth.”

“What truth?”

“The truth which I suspected without daring to admit it.”

“What truth?” he repeated, in a louder voice.

“The truth about your treason.”

“You’re mad. I’ve committed no treason.”

“Oh, don’t juggle with words! I confess that I don’t know the whole truth: I did not understand all that those men said or what they were demanding of you. But the secret which they tried to force from you was a treasonable secret.”

“A man can only commit treason against his country,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “I’m not a Frenchman.”

“You were a Frenchman!” she cried. “You asked to be one and you became one. You married me, a Frenchwoman, and you live in France and you’ve made your fortune in France. It’s France that you’re betraying.”

“Don’t talk nonsense! And for whose benefit?”

“I don’t know that, either. For months, for years indeed, the colonel, Bournef, all your former accomplices and yourself have been engaged on an enormous work⁠—yes, enormous, it’s their own word⁠—and now it appears that you are fighting over the profits of the common enterprise and the others accuse you of pocketing those profits for yourself alone and of keeping a secret that doesn’t belong to you. So that I seem to see something dirtier and more hateful even than treachery, something worthy of a common pickpocket.⁠ ⁠…”

The man struck the arm of his chair with his fist:

“Enough!” he cried.

Coralie seemed in no way alarmed:

“Enough,” she echoed, “you are right. Enough words between us. Besides, there is one fact that stands out above everything: your flight. That amounts to a confession. You’re afraid of the police.”

He shrugged his shoulders a second time:

“I’m afraid of nobody.”

“Very well, but you’re going.”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s have it out. When are you going?”

“Presently, at twelve o’clock.”

“And if you’re arrested?”

“I shan’t be arrested.”

“If you are arrested, however?”

“I shall be let go.”

“At least there will be an inquiry, a trial?”

“No, the matter will be hushed up.”

“You hope so.”

“I’m sure of it.”

“God grant it! And you will leave France, of course?”

“As soon as I can.”

“When will that be?”

“In a fortnight or three weeks.”

“Send me word of the day, so that I may know when I can breathe again.”

“I shall send you word, Coralie, but for another reason.”

“What reason?”

“So that you may join me.”

“Join you!”

He gave a cruel smile:

“You are my wife,” he said. “Where the husband goes the wife goes; and you know that, in my religion, the husband has every right over his wife, including that of life and death.