Werewolf of Paris (18 page)

A new thought disturbed him. Perhaps he ought to remove Jacques's clothes. “I can't go back to the house for my own.” Then he recalled, as if it were from a dream, that he had left his clothes in the meadow yonder, behind the hedge. “If all my dreams are true,” he said to himself, “then I'll find my clothes there.”

He left the body and ran back. There was no time to be lost. A distinct pearly haze of dawn pervaded the eastern sky. From the distance came the crowing of cocks. He almost wished that his clothes wouldn't be there. It would mean that at least some of his dreams weren't true. But his clothes, now damp with dew, were there where he had torn them from his feverish body. He dressed himself and ran back to finish his task.

At every moment the light increased and the business of burying his old playmate became more gruesome. The stiffened body was hard to manage. The knapsack was in the way. He removed it. “A good idea,” he thought to himself. “There will be things in there that I'll need. He made a hasty examination of the contents. Food, linen, and, tucked away, a billfold with money in it.

He had a sudden notion to dump out the bread and wine and cold meat in the knapsack and pack in a limb or two of the dead body. The idea so revolted him that he nearly retched. “Where do such ideas come to me from?” he exclaimed in horror.

He finished hastily with the grave, erased the signs of his activity as best he could by scattering leaves about. Then, shouldering the sack, he ran out to the road.

He walked all day, resting occasionally, heading, as far as he could judge, northeast, toward Paris. He avoided people and villages. Toward evening he found himself a good distance from his home and with a certain feeling of security.

At noon, that day, hunger had caused him to interrupt his flight for a moment. He had sought a cool, secluded spot, and had investigated more carefully the contents of the knapsack. There was a good quantity of various delicacies, cold chicken and hare. Old Bramond would have hare, Bertrand thought. There was a bottle of wine, several slices of bread, and a couple of early apples. And there was a small jar full of some paste, probably of liver and chopped greens. It made a delicious luncheon indeed. The wine was excellent and the cold meats most tasty. He ate with genuine appetite.

“I'll leave some for this evening,” he thought. “There'll be plenty here for another meal.” Satisfied, both with the present and with the prospects of the immediate future, he took a little nap and proceeded on his journey.

Evening discovered him hungry, true enough, but incapable of thinking of more chicken and hare for supper. He found himself turning over a strange thought in his mind': “Why didn't I take an arm from Jacques? Yes, he was my good friend Jacques, whom I've known all my life, but after all, he was dead, wasn't he? What good could my scruples do him, once he was done for?” Impassively, he ruminated on. “I'll know better next time.”

The pangs of hunger began to be acute and he found himself skirting the villages closer, hoping for a stray child, and looking closely at the churches and their adjoining yards, scanning them for wreaths and ribbons and other signs of a recent burial. But night found him still wandering, unsatisfied, past dark farmhouses where the dogs barked strangely at his passing scent. He sought the shelter of the woods. His body was racked with hunger. He yelped and whined at the moon that glittered coldly, cut by the silhouette of leaves and branches.

Only a few minutes after Bertrand had left the scene of that morning's crime, a young farmhand had come down the road. His shoe encountered a hard object that was flung ahead by the vigor of his stride. He picked up a handsome knotty cane. “Wonder who lost this?” he thought and walked on, making use of its swing and tap to grace and accentuate his walk.

Arrived at the scene of his work, he showed the cane to his fellow workers. “Look what I found. Nice, eh?” The workmen admired; but one man said: “Where'd you get that? Belongs to Old Bramond, the garde champêtre. Better return it.”

“I'll have to, I guess,” the young man said, a little sorrowfully, hating to part with the piece of polished wood to which his hand had already acquired a friendship.

“See that you do,” said the older man. Intentionally, however, the young man allowed various matters to delay him a week before he brought the cane back to its owner.

“Where did you find this?” Bramond asked in surprise.

“Out on the road.”

Bramond shook his head. “Hm.” He showed the stick to his wife.

“What does it mean?” she asked wildly.

“Hm. Nothing, I guess. You remember he did not want it and stuck it through the straps of his knapsack? It must have fallen out without his noticing it.”

“But we haven't heard from either him or Aunt Louise. Surely he's reached Paris already.”

“Give him time, Mother. You know he hasn't a cent to spare. With the four others we've got, he'll have to go easy. He knows that too. And Aunt Louise is poorer than we are. Now, don't you worry.”

“But I am worried. Oh, I wish we could have sent our boy to study in style. M Galliez told me Bertrand took the train at Arcy. And M Galliez is going to follow just as soon as he can. Oh, I hope everything is all right with Jacques!”

Lovesick for his sweetheart at home, the young farmhand suddenly departed. He was even willing to lose a portion of his wages for not having worked out the week. This proved a strong argument against him, when, a week or so later, poor Jacques's body was discovered and this young farmhand was brought to trial. It was shown by clocking that on that morning he would have encountered Jacques at just about the point of the road which was nearest the grave in the forest.

If he was not convicted, it was only because, aside from the cane and the meeting on the road which would explain either the finding of the cane or the murder, the evidence was too scanty. And no motive could be established, though theft was brought up strongly by the prosecution.

Old Bramond was heard to mutter: “If he isn't convicted, I'll murder him myself!” But his wife could only think of the sadness of it: over and over, as she shook her head, she would repeat: “Just imagine, he didn't even get out of sight of the village. And we thought him in Paris, long ago.”

Even the farmhand's girl back home had at least some suspicions and broke off with him, and the young man, though legally acquitted, found himself convicted by the community. Only Galliez had been decent to him, but when he knocked at the Galliez house he learnt that Monsieur was in Paris. He thought of emigrating, but he had no money, though the village credited him with having secreted Jacques's cash. He thought of joining the army, which was calling for men to join the colors to beat back the Prussians besieging Paris, but before he did so, he got himself drunk one night of desperation and hanged himself.

“Saved my gun the trouble,” Bramond grumbled. “Well, that shows up his bad conscience.”

He was told of a note that was left by the young man. It read:

I am innocent, but even my dearest Hélène thinks me guilty. How can I live?

“Hm,” said Bramond in surprise. “The cheek of that kind to lie, even when they are about to appear before God's tribunal.”

Only Aymar knew. That morning that Jacques was murdered was the morning Bertrand had run off. The manner of the killing, the tearing of the carotid artery, the mutilation, etc. There could be no doubt of it. And yet: What proof had he?

His first intention was to run off at once to Paris, where he suspected Bertrand must be, but he delayed several weeks. There was the trial of the poor farmhand. He must see that there be no miscarriage of justice there. He journeyed to Auxerre, where the trial was to be held, and having assured himself by a talk with the lawyers of the defense that the man could not possibly be convicted, he thought to have done his duty by slipping the poor fellow fifty francs and promising to do more if necessary.

Subsequently, in Paris, when several months later news began to come through again, he learnt of the truth and reproached himself bitterly. “If only I had set fire to the house that night,” he thought. That phrase in the letter had been true: the Pitamonts leave a trail of misfortune that spreads out fanwise behind their poisonous course. If only he could have brought himself to make a complete confession to the police. But there was a strange shame here that he could not overcome. Oh, the terrible disgrace, the ignominy of it—possessing a mythical monster in one's own family, in this age of science and enlightenment!

Chapter Ten

A
ymar slipped into Paris, September the third, a day before its investment by the Germans was complete. Long before he had reached Paris, he had come to understand that, with no clue to go by, it would be difficult to find Bertrand. “How, in fact, shall I discover him?” Then he thought, sadly but realistically: “He will leave a trail of crimes.”

Aymar's first duty ought, then, to have been a visit to the police. But of this he naturally fought shy. What would he say to the police? For example: “I know something. There is a man who on certain nights craves blood so that he turns into a wolf and goes out to kill his prey.” If they do not laugh me out of court, they will at any rate ask:“You have seen this with your eyes.”And I shall say:“No, butI have proof of this fact from having lived with this man for nineteen years.”—“What proof have you?” “There was a silver bullet, which was shot at a wolf, and was found in his leg.”—“The mere sight of this bullet wouldn't convince us, but where is it?”—“I haven't got it, but he was born on Christmas eve and his eyebrows meet…”

No, this was mad. He would not even get that far, and if he did, what good would it do? In the end he could only be locked up for a fool, and “serve me right, for I'd be a fool to do it,” Aymar concluded these thoughts.

The best thing would be to wait for circumstances to make the matter plain to a number of people. “Then I can appear with my further confirmation. And either there will be crimes such that the matter will come to light, or else there will be no crimes and I needn't worry.”

Thus it was that several times a day Aymar looked through all the papers. Impatiently he turned away from the war news and sought the news of crime. But the war had crowded the latter out. Before the greater importance of thousands going to death, before a greater werewolf drinking the blood of regiments, of what importance was a little werewolf like Bertrand?

Nevertheless, one day there was a clue. A General Darimon had died. His death roused sympathy, for his end was tragic. On one day he had lost his only child. On the next he had suffered a most brutal attack, the criminal going so far as to desecrate the dead child, and on the following day he, himself, had expired. The criminal was being held at the Déepôt and would shortly be moved to the prison of La Grande Roquette to await trial.

The matter allows itself to be reconstructed from the data given by Aymar in his script, the newspapers of the time, the dossier of a certain Jean Robert, etc.

General Darimon had been a popular figure in Imperial Paris. After a life spent in seeking the satisfaction of his baser instincts, he had secured both a stable position and a new fortune by an excellent marriage to an heiress. Despite the gossips, he was genuinely in love and thoroughly willing to be completely domesticated, which is not surprising, seeing that he was near taking his retirement. His cup ran over when he was blessed with a daughter, who he could not doubt was to be the last fruit of his life.

In November 1870, when the girl was but five years old, she was carried off by so rapid an illness that there had been scarce time to call a physician, who, to be sure, could himself do no more than witness the last choked breaths of the hot, tortured body, whose fever cooled down rapidly to death's chill.

The church ceremony was impressive. The funeral cortége, for those days when horses were lacking, was nevertheless an endless file, so great was the company. Women and children wrapped in shawls against the cold streets, waiting in long queues to obtain their little rations of meat, watched the sad procession and found their lot a little easier to bear. Even shivering in the cold is a manifestation of life. It's when the cold no longer makes you shiver…

The little body was brought to rest at Pére-Lachaise. The workmen had removed the great slabs of stone from the vault and, on account of the lateness of the hour and the bitter cold, had gone home, expecting to close the vault on the morrow.

The stricken parent, with tears streaming over his cheeks, could not restrain himself from weeping out loud, and informing those around him that he had been a cruel father who once had even shouted angrily at his angelic daughter because she had scribbled over some important correspondence. For this he would never forgive himself. Why had he not saved those scribbled sheets and framed them? They would now have been the most cherished mementos of his life.

Among the mourners were many of the general's old colleagues who could not help recalling that this pitiful old man with his childish tale of woe had been for twenty years the most noted raconteur of risqué stories in France, with more than one such story of his own experience. The way that man could crack a chestnut in the company of young men and women so that the girls understood not a word while the men had to hold their sides! That had been, in fact, his favorite trick, his forte.

The hardest hearts melted at the sight of the father being torn away by force from the pit that had swallowed his child in its white coffin. The wife distraught, half unconscious, suffered herself to be led back to the long line of carriages with no resistance. But the general proved a problem for his friends.

Finally he stood at the door of the coach. Resolved, he suddenly went forward to the black-plumed horses and spoke to the coachman. “You will call for me at five o'clock tomorrow morning. And every morning hereafter until I die. I shall see the sun rise here every day of my life.” The startled coachman doffed his tall black hat and mumbled something incomprehensible.