The Secret Tomb by Maurice Leblanc (i like reading .txt) 📕

my thinking impossible, but which none the less your interests compel me to take into account⁠—of destiny having betrayed me and of your finding no trace of me, you will yourselves open the envelope and learning the whereabouts of the hiding-place, take possession of the diamonds. Then and thereafter I declare that the ownership of the diamonds is vested in those of my descendants who shall present the gold medal, and that no person shall have the right to intervene in the fair partition of them, on which they shall agree among themselves, and I beg them to make that partition themselves as their consciences shall direct.

“I have said what I have to say, my children. I am about to enter into the silence and await your coming. I do not doubt that you will come from all the corners of the earth at the imperious summons of the gold medal. Sprung from the same stock, be as brothers and sisters among yourselves. Approach with serious minds him who sleeps, and deliver him from the bonds which keep him in the kingdom of darkness.

“Written by my own hand, in perfect health of mind and body, this day, the 12th of July, 1721. Delivered under my hand and seal.

“Jean-Pierre-Augustin de la Roche, Marquis de ⸻”

Maître Delarue was silent, bent nearer to the paper, and murmured:

“The signature is scarcely legible: the name begins with a B or an R⁠ ⁠… the flourish muddles up all the letters.”

Dorothy said slowly:

“Jean-Pierre-Augustin de la Roche, Marquis de Beaugreval.”

“Yes, yes: that’s it!” cried the notary at once. “Marquis de Beaugreval. How did you know?”

XII The Elixir of Resurrection

Dorothy did not answer. She was still quite absorbed in the strange will of the Marquis. Her companions, their eyes fixed on her, seemed to be waiting for her to express an opinion; and since she remained silent, George Earrington, of London, said:

“Not a bad joke. What?”

She shook her head:

“Is it quite certain, cousin, that it is a joke?”

“Oh, mademoiselle! This resurrection⁠ ⁠… the elixir⁠ ⁠… the hidden diamonds!”

“I don’t say that it isn’t,” said Dorothy, smiling. “The old fellow does seem to me a trifle cracked. Nevertheless the letter he has written to us is certainly authentic; at the end of two centuries we have come, as he foresaw that we should, to the rendezvous he appointed, and above all we are certainly members of the same family.”

“I think that we might start embracing all over again, mademoiselle.”

“I’m sure, if our ancestor permits it, I shall be charmed,” said Dorothy.

“But he does permit it.”

“We’ll go and ask him.”

Maître Delarue protested:

“You’ll go without me, mademoiselle. Understand once and for all that I am not going to see whether Jean-Pierre-Augustin de la Roche, Marquis de Beaugreval, is still alive at the age of two hundred and sixty-two years!”

“But he isn’t as old as all that, Maître Delarue. We need not count the two hundred years’ sleep. Then it’s only a matter of sixty-two years; that’s quite normal. His friend, Monsieur de Fontenelle, as the Marquis predicted and thanks to an elixir of life, lived to be a hundred.”

“In fact you do not believe in it, mademoiselle?”

“No. But all the same there should be something in it.”

“What else can there be in it?”

“We shall know presently. But at the moment I confess to my shame that I should like before⁠—”

She paused; and with one accord they cried:

“What?”

She laughed.

“Well, the truth is I’m hungry⁠—hungry with a two-hundred-year-old hunger⁠—as hungry as the Marquis de Beaugreval must be. Has any of you by any chance⁠—”

The three young men darted away. One ran to his motorcycle, the other two to their horses. Each had a haversack full of provisions which they brought and set out on the grass at Dorothy’s feet. The Russian Kourobelef, who had only a slice of bread, dragged a large flat stone in front of her by way of table.

“This is really nice!” she said, clapping her hands. “A real family lunch! We invite you to join us, Maître Delarue, and you also, soldier of Wrangel.”

The meal, washed down by the good wine of Anjou, was a merry one. They drank the health of the worthy nobleman who had had the excellent idea of bringing them together at his château; and Webster made a speech in his honor.

The diamonds, the codicil, the survival of their ancestor and his resurrection had become so many trifles to which they paid no further attention. For them the adventure came to an end with the reading of the letter and the improvised meal. And even so it was amazing enough!

“And so amusing!” said Dorothy, who kept laughing. “I assure you that I have never been so amused⁠—never.”

Her four cousins, as she called them, hung on her lips and never took their eyes off her, amused and astonished by everything she said. At first sight they had understood her and she had understood them, without the five of them having to pass through the usual stages of becoming intimate, through which people who are thrown together for the first time generally have to pass. To them she was grace, beauty, spirit and freshness. She represented the charming country from which their ancestors had long ago departed; they found in her at once a sister of whom they were proud and a woman they burned to win.

Already rivals, each of them strove to appear at his best.

Errington, Webster, and Dario organized contests, feats of strength, exhibitions of balancing; they ran races. The only prize they asked for was that Dorothy, queen of the tourney, should regard them with favor with those beautiful eyes, of which they felt the profound seduction, and which appeared to them the most beautiful eyes they had ever seen.

But the winner of the tournament was Dorothy herself. Directly she took part in it, all that the others could do was to sit down, look on, and wonder. A fragment of wall, of which the top had crumbled