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

in the garden seemed to them a pilgrimage amid forgotten memories; and, at every turn in a path, they were prepared to discover some new proof of the bond that linked them together unknown to themselves.

As a matter of fact, during those few days, they saw their initials interlaced twice on the trunk of a tree, once on the back of a bench. And twice again their names appeared inscribed on old walls and concealed behind a layer of plaster overhung with ivy.

On these two occasions their names were accompanied by two separate dates:

Patrice and Coralie, 1904
Patrice and Coralie, 1907

“Eleven years ago and eight years ago,” said the officer. “And always our two names: Patrice and Coralie.”

Their hands met and clasped each other. The great mystery of their past brought them as closely together as did the great love which filled them and of which they refrained from speaking.

In spite of themselves, however, they sought out solitude; and it was in this way that, a fortnight after the murder of Essarès Bey, as they passed the little door opening on the lane, they decided to go out by it and to stroll down to the river bank. No one saw them, for both the approach to the door and the path leading to it were hidden by a screen of tall bushes; and M. Masseron and his men were exploring the old greenhouses, which stood at the other side of the garden, and the old furnace and chimney which had been used for signaling.

But, when he was outside, Patrice stopped. Almost in front of him, in the opposite wall, was an exactly similar door. He called Coralie’s attention to it, but she said:

“There is nothing astonishing about that. This wall is the boundary of another garden which at one time belonged to the one we have just left.”

“But who lives there?”

“Nobody. The little house which overlooks it and which comes before mine, in the Rue Raynouard, is always shut up.”

“Same door, same key, perhaps,” Patrice murmured, half to himself.

He inserted in the lock the rusty key, which had reached him by messenger. The lock responded.

“Well,” he said, “the series of miracles is continuing. Will this one be in our favor?”

The vegetation had been allowed to run riot in the narrow strip of ground that faced them. However, in the middle of the exuberant grass, a well-trodden path, which looked as if it were often used, started from the door in the wall and rose obliquely to the single terrace, on which stood a dilapidated lodge with closed shutters. It was built on one floor, but was surmounted by a small lantern-shaped belvedere. It had its own entrance in the Rue Raynouard, from which it was separated by a yard and a very high wall. This entrance seemed to be barricaded with boards and posts nailed together.

They walked round the house and were surprised by the sight that awaited them on the right-hand side. The foliage had been trained into rectangular cloisters, carefully kept, with regular arcades cut in yew- and box-hedges. A miniature garden was laid out in this space, the very home of silence and tranquillity. Here also were wallflowers and pansies and hyacinths. And four paths, coming from four corners of the cloisters, met round a central space, where stood the five columns of a small, open temple, rudely constructed of pebbles and unmortared building-stones.

Under the dome of this little temple was a tombstone and, in front of it, an old wooden praying-chair, from the bars of which hung, on the left, an ivory crucifix and, on the right, a rosary composed of amethyst beads in a gold filigree setting.

“Coralie, Coralie,” whispered Patrice, in a voice trembling with emotion, “who can be buried here?”

They went nearer. There were bead wreaths laid in rows on the tombstone. They counted nineteen, each bearing the date of one of the last nineteen years. Pushing them aside, they read the following inscription in gilt letters worn and soiled by the rain:

Here lie
Patrice and Coralie,
both of whom were murdered
on the 14th of April, 1895.
Revenge to me: I will repay.

X The Red Cord

Coralie, feeling her legs give way beneath her, had flung herself on the prie-dieu and there knelt praying fervently and wildly. She could not tell on whose behalf, for the repose of what unknown soul her prayers were offered; but her whole being was afire with fever and exaltation and the very action of praying seemed able to assuage her.

“What was your mother’s name, Coralie?” Patrice whispered.

“Louise,” she replied.

“And my father’s name was Armand. It cannot be either of them, therefore; and yet⁠ ⁠…”

Patrice also was displaying the greatest agitation. Stooping down, he examined the nineteen wreaths, renewed his inspection of the tombstone and said:

“All the same, Coralie, the coincidence is really too extraordinary. My father died in 1895.”

“And my mother died in that year too,” she said, “though I do not know the exact date.”

“We shall find out, Coralie,” he declared. “These things can all be verified. But meanwhile one truth becomes clear. The man who used to interlace the names of Patrice and Coralie was not thinking only of us and was not considering only the future. Perhaps he thought even more of the past, of that Coralie and Patrice whom he knew to have suffered a violent death and whom he had undertaken to avenge. Come away, Coralie. No one must suspect that we have been here.”

They went down the path and through the two doors on the lane. They were not seen coming in. Patrice at once brought Coralie indoors, urged Ya-Bon and his comrades to increase their vigilance and left the house.

He came back in the evening only to go out again early the next day; and it was not until the day after, at three o’clock in the afternoon, that he asked to be shown up to Coralie.

“Have you found out?” she asked him at once.

“I have found out