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

before finishing his work; he died murdered, whereas Siméon is alive. Besides,” continued Patrice, “this man had a different voice from Siméon, a voice which I had never heard before and which I shall never hear again.”

Coralie was convinced and did not insist.

They were seated on one of the benches in the garden, enjoying the bright April sunshine. The buds of the chestnut-trees shone at the tips of the branches. The heavy scent of the wallflowers rose from the borders; and their brown and yellow blossoms, like a cluster of bees and wasps pressed close together, swayed to the light breeze.

Suddenly Patrice felt a thrill. Coralie had placed her hand on his, with engaging friendliness; and, when he turned to look at her, he saw that she was in tears.

“What’s the matter, Little Mother Coralie?”

Coralie’s head bent down and her cheek touched the officer’s shoulder. He dared not move. She was treating him as a protecting elder brother; and he shrank from showing any warmth of affection that might annoy her.

“What is it, dear?” he repeated. “What’s the matter?”

“Oh, it is so strange!” she murmured. “Look, Patrice, look at those flowers.”

They were on the third terrace, commanding a view of the fourth; and this, the lowest of the terraces, was adorned not with borders of wallflowers but with beds in which were mingled all manner of spring flowers; tulips, silvery alyssums, hyacinths, with a great round plot of pansies in the middle.

“Look over there,” she said, pointing to this plot with her outstretched arm. “Do you see?⁠ ⁠… Letters.⁠ ⁠…”

Patrice looked and gradually perceived that the clumps of pansies were so arranged as to form on the ground some letters that stood out among the other flowers. It did not appear at the first glance. It took a certain time to see; but, once seen, the letters grouped themselves of their own accord, forming three words set down in a single line:

Patrice and Coralie

“Ah,” he said, in a low voice, “I understand what you mean!”

It gave them a thrill of inexpressible excitement to read their two names, which a friendly hand had, so to speak, sown; their two names united in pansy-flowers. It was inexpressibly exciting too that he and she should always find themselves thus linked together, linked together by events, linked together by their portraits, linked together by an unseen force of will, linked together now by the struggling effort of little flowers that spring up, waken into life and blossom in predetermined order.

Coralie, sitting up, said:

“It’s Siméon who attends to the garden.”

“Yes,” he said, wavering slightly. “But surely that does not affect my opinion. Our unknown friend is dead, but Siméon may have known him. Siméon perhaps was acting with him in certain matters and must know a good deal. Oh, if he could only put us on the right road!”

An hour later, as the sun was sinking on the horizon, they climbed the terraces. On reaching the top they saw M. Masseron beckoning to them.

“I have something curious to show you,” he said, “something I have found which will interest both you, madame, and you, captain, particularly.”

He led them to the very end of the terrace, outside the occupied part of the house next to the library. Two detectives were standing mattock in hand. In the course of their searching, M. Masseron explained, they had begun by removing the ivy from the low wall adorned with terra-cotta vases. Thereupon M. Masseron’s attention was attracted by the fact that this wall was covered, for a length of some yards, by a layer of plaster which appeared to be more recent in date than the stone.

“What did it mean?” said M. Masseron. “I had to presuppose some motive. I therefore had this layer of plaster demolished; and underneath it I found a second layer, not so thick as the first and mingled with the rough stone. Come closer⁠ ⁠… or, rather, no, stand back a little way: you can see better like that.”

The second layer really served only to keep in place some small white pebbles, which constituted a sort of mosaic set in black pebbles and formed a series of large, written letters, spelling three words. And these three words once again were:

Patrice and Coralie

“What do you say to that?” asked M. Masseron. “Observe that the inscription goes several years back, at least ten years, when we consider the condition of the ivy clinging to this part of the wall.”

“At least ten years,” Patrice repeated, when he was once more alone with Coralie. “Ten years ago was when you were not married, when you were still at Salonica and when nobody used to come to this garden⁠ ⁠… nobody except Siméon and such people as he chose to admit. And among these,” he concluded, “was our unknown friend who is now dead. And Siméon knows the truth, Coralie.”

They saw old Siméon, late that afternoon, as they had seen him constantly since the tragedy, wandering in the garden or along the passages of the house, restless and distraught, with his comforter always wound round his head and his spectacles on his nose, stammering words which no one could understand. At night, his neighbor, one of the maimed soldiers, would often hear him humming to himself.

Patrice twice tried to make him speak. He shook his head and did not answer, or else laughed like an idiot.

The problem was becoming complicated; and nothing pointed to a possible solution. Who was it that, since their childhood, had promised them to each other as a pair betrothed long beforehand by an inflexible ordinance? Who was it that arranged the pansy-bed last autumn, when they did not know each other? And who was it that had written their two names, ten years ago, in white pebbles, within the thickness of a wall?

These were haunting questions for two young people in whom love had awakened quite spontaneously and who suddenly saw stretching behind them a long past common to them both. Each step that they took