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

“He is dead.”

“No matter, the threats are there. Old Siméon tells you so in a striking fashion.”

“He’s half mad.”

“Exactly, his brain retains the impression of great and imminent danger. No, the struggle is not ended. Perhaps indeed it is only beginning.”

“Well, captain, are we not here? Make it your business to protect and defend Mme. Essarès by all the means in your power and by all those which I place at your disposal. Our collaboration will be uninterrupted, because my task lies here and because, if the battle⁠—which you expect and I do not⁠—takes place, it will be within the walls of this house and garden.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Some words which Mme. Essarès overheard last night. The colonel repeated several times, ‘The gold is here, Essarès.’ He added, ‘For years past, your car brought to this house all that there was at your bank in the Rue Lafayette. Siméon, you and the chauffeur used to let the sacks down the last grating on the left. How you used to send it away I do not know. But of what was here on the day when the war broke out, of the seventeen or eighteen hundred bags which they were expecting out yonder, none has left your place. I suspected the trick; and we kept watch night and day. The gold is here.’ ”

“And have you no clue?”

“Not one. Or this at most; but I attach comparatively little value to it.”

He took a crumpled paper from his pocket, unfolded it and continued:

“Besides the pendant, Essarès Bey held in his hand this bit of blotted paper, on which you can see a few straggling, hurriedly-written words. The only ones that are more or less legible are these: ‘golden triangle.’ What this golden triangle means, what it has to do with the case in hand, I can’t for the present tell. The most that I am able to presume is that, like the pendant, the scrap of paper was snatched by Essarès Bey from the man who died at nineteen minutes past seven this morning and that, when he himself was killed at twenty-three minutes past twelve, he was occupied in examining it.”

“And then there is the album,” said Patrice, making his last point. “You see how all the details are linked together. You may safely believe that it is all one case.”

“Very well,” said M. Masseron. “One case in two parts. You, captain, had better follow up the second. I grant you that nothing could be stranger than this discovery of photographs of Mme. Essarès and yourself in the same album and in the same pendant. It sets a problem the solution of which will no doubt bring us very near to the truth. We shall meet again soon, Captain Belval, I hope. And, once more, make use of me and of my men.”

He shook Patrice by the hand. Patrice held him back:

“I shall make use of you, sir, as you suggest. But is this not the time to take the necessary precautions?”

“They are taken, captain. We are in occupation of the house.”

“Yes⁠ ⁠… yes⁠ ⁠… I know; but, all the same⁠ ⁠… I have a sort of presentiment that the day will not end without.⁠ ⁠… Remember old Siméon’s strange words.⁠ ⁠…”

M. Masseron began to laugh:

“Come, Captain Belval, we mustn’t exaggerate things. If any enemies remain for us to fight, they must stand in great need, for the moment, of taking council with themselves. We’ll talk about this tomorrow, shall we, captain?”

He shook hands with Patrice again, bowed to Mme. Essarès and left the room.

Belval had at first made a discreet movement to go out with him. He stopped at the door and walked back again. Mme. Essarès, who seemed not to hear him, sat motionless, bent in two, with her head turned away from him.

“Coralie,” he said.

She did not reply; and he uttered her name a second time, hoping that again she might not answer, for her silence suddenly appeared to him to be the one thing in the world for him to desire. That silence no longer implied either constraint or rebellion. Coralie accepted the fact that he was there, by her side, as a helpful friend. And Patrice no longer thought of all the problems that harassed him, nor of the murders that had mounted up, one after another, around them, nor of the dangers that might still encompass them. He thought only of Coralie’s yielding gentleness.

“Don’t answer, Coralie, don’t say a word. It is for me to speak. I must tell you what you do not know, the reasons that made you wish to keep me out of this house⁠ ⁠… out of this house and out of your very life.”

He put his hand on the back of the chair in which she was sitting; and his hand just touched Coralie’s hair.

“Coralie, you imagine that it is the shame of your life here that keeps you away from me. You blush at having been that man’s wife; and this makes you feel troubled and anxious, as though you yourself had been guilty. But why should you? It was not your fault. Surely you know that I can guess the misery and hatred that must have passed between you and him and the constraint that was brought to bear upon you, by some machination, in order to force your consent to the marriage! No, Coralie, there is something else; and I will tell you what it is. There is something else.⁠ ⁠…”

He was bending over her still more. He saw her beautiful profile lit up by the blazing logs and, speaking with increasing fervor and adopting the familiar tu and toi which, in his mouth, retained a note of affectionate respect, he cried:

“Am I to speak, Little Mother Coralie? I needn’t, need I? You have understood; and you read yourself clearly. Ah, I feel you trembling from head to foot! Yes, yes, I tell you, I knew your secret from the very first day. From the very first day you