第115章

I had reached the second floor.At one corner of the long corridor there was a notification that the numbers ran from 300 to 360.Awaiter passed me, whistling; two girls were chattering and laughing in a kind of office at the stair-head; the various noises of the courtyard came up through the open windows.

The moment was opportune for the execution of my project.With these people about the man could not hope to escape from the house.

345, 350, 351, 353--I stood before the door of Edmond Termonde's room; the key was in the lock; chance had served my purpose better than I had ventured to hope.This trifling particular bore witness to the security in which the man whom I was about to surprise was living.Was he even aware that I existed?

I paused a moment before the closed door.I wore a short coat, so as to have my revolver within easy reach in the pocket, and I put my right hand upon it, opened the door with my left, and entered without knocking.

"Who is there?" said a man who was lying rather than sitting in an arm-chair, with his feet on a table; he was reading a newspaper and smoking, and his back was turned to the door.He did not trouble himself to rise and see whose hand had opened the door, thinking, no doubt, that a servant had come in; he merely turned his head slightly, and I did not give him time to look completely round.

"M.Rochdale?" I asked.

He started to his feet, pushed away the chair, and rushed to the other side of the table, staring at me with a terrified countenance; his light blue eyes were unnaturally distended, his face was livid, his mouth was half open, his legs bent under him.

His tall, robust frame had sustained one of those shocks of excessive terror which almost paralyze the forces of life.He uttered but one word--"Cornelis!"At last I held in my victorious hand the proof that I had been seeking for months, and in that moment I was master of all the resources of my being.Yes, I was as calm, as clear of purpose, as my adversary was the reverse.He was not accustomed to live, like his accomplice, in the daily habits of studied dissimulation.The name, "Rochdale," the terrifying likeness, the unlooked-for arrival! I had not been mistaken in my calculation.With the amazing rapidity of thought that accompanies action I perceived the necessity of following up this first shock of moral terror by a shock of physical terror.Otherwise, the man would hurl himself upon me, in the moment of reaction, thrust me aside and rush away like a madman, at the risk of being stopped on the stairs by the servants, and then? But I had already taken out my revolver, and Inow covered the wretch with it, calling him by his real name, to prove that I knew all about him.

"M.Edmond Termonde," I said, "if you make one step towards me, Iwill kill you, like the assassin that you are, as you killed my father."Pointing to a chair at the corner of the half-open window, I added:

"Sit down!"

He obeyed mechanically.At that instant I exercised absolute control over him; but I felt sure this would cease so soon as he recovered his presence of mind.But even though the rest of the interview were now to go against me, that could not alter the certainty which I had acquired.I had wanted to know whether Edmond Termonde was the man who had called himself Rochdale, and Ihad secured undeniable proof of the fact.Nevertheless, it was due to myself that I should extract from my enemy the proof of the truth of all my conjectures, that proof which would place my stepfather at my mercy.This was a fresh phase of the struggle.

I glanced round the room in which I was shut up with the assassin.

On the bed, placed on my left, lay a loaded cane, a hat and an overcoat; on a small table were a steel "knuckle-duster" and a revolver.Among the articles laid out on a chest of drawers on my right a bowie-knife was conspicuous, a valise was placed against an unused door, a wardrobe with a looking-glass stood before another unused door, then came the toilet-stand, and the man, crouching under the aim of my revolver, between the table and the window.He could neither escape, nor reach to any means of defense without a personal struggle with me; but he would have to stand my fire first, and besides, if he was tall and robust, I was neither short or feeble.I was twenty-five, he was fifty.All the moral forces were for me, I must win.

"Now," said I, as I took a seat, but without releasing him from the covering barrel of my pistol, "let us talk.""What do you want of me?" he asked roughly.His voice was both hoarse and muffled; the blood had gone back into his cheeks, his eyes, those eyes so exactly like his brother's, sparkled.The brute-nature was reviving in him after having sustained a fearful shock, as though astonished that it still lived.

"Come, then," he added, clenching his fists, "I am caught.Fire on me, and let this end."Then, as I made him no answer, but continued to threaten him with my pistol, he exclaimed:

"Ah! I understand; it is that blackguard Jacques who has sold me to you in order to get rid of me himself.There's the statute of limitations--he thinks he is safe! But has he told you that he was in it himself, good, honest man, and that I have the proof of this?

Ah! he thinks I am going to let you kill me, like that, without speaking? No, I shall call out, we shall be arrested, and all will be known."Fury had seized upon him; he was about to shout "Help!" and the worst of it was that rage was rising in me also.It was he, with that same hand which I saw creeping along the table, strong, hairy, seeking something to throw at me--yes--it was he who had killed my father.

One impulse more of anger and I was lost; a bullet was lodged in his body, and I saw his blood flow.Oh, what good it would have done me to see that sight!

But no, I soon made the sacrifice of this particular vengeance.In a second, I beheld myself arrested, obliged to explain everything, and my mother exposed to all the misery of it.