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

to the wise. Now, cousin Dorothy, I’m at your service. Follow me. We’re going to perform the impossible in our attempt to come to an understanding.”

All resistance was futile. She went with him to the other side of the tower across an accumulation of ruins, to a chamber of which there only remained the walls, pierced with loopholes, which he said was the ancient guardroom.

“We shall be able to talk comfortably here. Your suitors will be able neither to see nor hear us. The solitude is absolute. Look here’s a grassy bank. Please sit down.”

She crossed her arms and remained standing, her head straight. He waited, murmured: “As you like”; then, taking the seat he had offered her, he said:

“This is our third interview, Dorothy. The first time, on the terrace of Roborey, you refused my offers, which was to be expected. You were ignorant of the exact value of my information; and all I could seem to you was a rather odd and disreputable person, against who you were burning to make war. A very noble sentiment which imposed on the Chagny cousins, but which did not deceive me, since I knew all about the theft of the earrings. In reality you had only one object: to get rid, in view of the great windfall you hoped for, of the most dangerous competitor. And the chief proof of that is that immediately after having denounced me you hurried off to Hillocks Manor, where you would probably find the solution of the riddle, and where I was again brought up short by your intrigues. To turn young Davernoie’s head and sneak the medal, such was the task you undertook, and I admiringly confess carried it out from beginning to end. Only⁠ ⁠… only⁠ ⁠… d’Estreicher is not the kind of man to be disposed of so easily. Escape, that sham fire, the recovery of the medal, the capture of the codicil, in short complete redress. At the present moment the four diamonds belong to me. Whether I take possession of them tomorrow, or in a week, or in a year, is of no consequence. They are mine. Dozens of people, hundreds perhaps, have been vainly searching for them for two centuries; there is no reason why others should find them now. Behold me then exceedingly rich⁠ ⁠… millions and millions. Wealth like that permits one to become honest⁠ ⁠… which is my intention⁠ ⁠… if always Dorothy consents to be the passenger of whom I told my men. One word in answer. Is it yes? Is it no?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“I knew what to expect,” he said. “All the same I wished to make the test⁠ ⁠… before having recourse to extreme measures.”

He awaited the effect of this threat. Dorothy did not stir.

“How calm you are!” he said in a tone in which there was a note of disquiet. “However you understand the situation exactly?”

“Exactly.”

“We’re alone. I have as pledges, as means of acting on you, the life of Montfaucon and the lives of these three bound men. Then how comes it that you are so calm?”

She said clearly and positively:

“I am calm because I know you are lost.”

“Come, come,” he said laughing.

“Irretrievably lost.”

“And why?”

“Just now, at the inn, after having learnt about the kidnapping of Montfaucon, I sent my three other boys to the nearest farms to bring all the peasants they met.”

He sneered:

“By the time they’ve got together a troop of peasants, I shall be a long way off.”

“They are nearly here. I’m certain of it.”

“Too late, my pretty dear. If I’d had the slightest doubt, I’d have had you carried off by my men.”

“By your men? No.⁠ ⁠…”

“What is there to prevent it?”

“You are afraid of them, in spite of your airs of wild-beast tamer. They’re asking themselves whether you didn’t stay here to take advantage of the secret you have stolen and get hold of the diamonds. They would find an ally in me. You would not dare to take the risk.”

“And then?”

“Then that’s why I am calm.”

He shook his head and in a grating voice:

“A lie, little one. Playacting. You are paler than the dead, for you know exactly where you stand. Whether I am tracked here in an hour, or whether my men end by betraying me, makes little difference. What does matter, to you, to me, is not what happens in an hour, but what is going to happen now. And you have no doubts about what is going to happen, have you?”

He rose and standing over her, studied her with a menacing bitterness:

“From the first minute I was caught like an imbecile! Ropedancer, acrobat, princess, thief, mountebank, there is something in you which overwhelms me. I have always despised women⁠ ⁠… not one has troubled me in my life. You, you attract me while you frighten me. Love? No. Hate.⁠ ⁠… Or rather a disease.⁠ ⁠… A poison which burns me and of which I must rid myself, Dorothy.”

He was very close to her, his eyes hard and full of fever. His hands hovered about the young girl’s shoulders, ready to throw her down. To avoid their grasp she had to draw back towards the wall. He said in a very low, breathless voice:

“Stop laughing, Dorothy! I’ve had enough of your gypsy spells. The taste of your lips, that’s the potion that’s going to heal me. Afterwards I shall be able to fly and never see you again. But afterwards only. Do you understand?”

He set his two hands on her shoulders so roughly that she tottered. However, she continued to defy him with her attitude wholly contemptuous. Her will was strained to prevent him from getting once more the impression that she could tremble in the depths of her being and grow weak.

“Do you understand?⁠ ⁠… Do you understand?” the man stuttered, hammering her arms and neck. “Do you understand that nothing can stop it? Help is impossible. It’s the penalty of defeat. Today I avenge myself⁠ ⁠… and at the same time I free myself from you.⁠ ⁠… When we are separated, I shall