CHAPTER IX—UNTIL THE DAWN

THE man upon the bed moaned continuously now; the wind swirled around the corners of the house; the waves pounded in dull, heavy thuds upon the shore without—but Raymond heard none of it. It seemed as though he were exhausted, spent, physically weak, as from some Titanic struggle. He did not move. He sat there, head bowed, his hands clasped over his face.

And then, after a long time, a shudder shook his frame—and he rose mechanically from his chair. The door was locked, and subconsciously he realised that it should not be found locked when that somebody—who was it?—yes, he remembered now—the doctor from Tournayville, and the police—it should not be found locked when the doctor and the police arrived, because they would naturally ask him to account for the reason of it. He crossed to the door, unlocked it, and returned to the chair.

And now he stared at the crucifix upon his breast. For the second time that night it had played a strange and unaccountable rôle. He lifted his hand to his head. His head still ached from the blow the old hag had struck him with the piece of wood. That was what was the matter. His head ached and he could not therefore think logically, otherwise he would not be fool enough to hold the crucifix responsible for—for preventing him from what he had been about to do a little while ago.

His face grew cynical in its expression. The crucifix had nothing to do with it, nor had the vision of the girl's eyes, nor had the imagined sound of Valérie's voice—those things were, all of them, but the form his true self had taken to express itself when he had so madly tormented himself with that hellish purpose. If it had not been things like that, it would have been something else. He could not have struck down a wounded and defenceless man, he could not have committed murder in cold blood like that. He had recoiled from the act, because it was an act that was beyond him to perform, that was all. That man there on the bed was as safe, as far as he, Raymond, was concerned, as though they were separated by a thousand miles.

“Sophistry!” sneered that inner voice. “You are a weak-kneed fool, and very far from a heroic soul that has been tried by fire! Well, you will pay for it!” Raymond cast a quick startled glance at the bed, and half rose from his seat. What—again? Was that thought back again? He sank back in the chair, gripping the chair-arms until his knuckles cracked.

“I won't!” he mumbled hoarsely. “By God—I won't! Maybe—maybe the man will die.”

And then impulsively he was on his feet, and pacing the room, a sweep of anger upon him.

“What had I to do with all this!” he cried, in low, fierce tones. “And look at me!”—he had halted before the dresser, and was glaring into the mirror. “Look at me!” A face whose pallor was enhanced by the black clerical garb gazed contortedly back at him; the crucifix, symbol of peace, hung from about his neck. He tucked it hastily inside the soutane. “Look at me!” he cried, and clenched his fist and shook it at the mirror. “Three-Ace Artie! That's you there, Three-Ace Artie! God or the devil has stacked the cards on you, and——”

He swung sharply about—listening; and, on the instant, with grave demeanour, his face soberly composed, faced the doorway.

The door opened, and two men stepped into the room. One was a big man, bearded, with a bluff and hearty cast of countenance that seemed peculiarly fitting to his immense breadth of shoulder; the other, a sort of foil as it were, was small, sharp featured, with roving black eyes that, as he stood on the threshold and on tiptoe impatiently peered over the big man's shoulder, darted quick little glances in all directions about him. The small man closed the door with a sort of fussily momentous air.

“Tiens, Monsieur le Curé”—the big man extended his hand to Raymond. “I am Doctor Arnaud. And this is Monsieur Dupont, the assistant chief of police of Tournayville. Hum!”—he glanced toward the bed. “Hum!”—he dropped Raymond's hand, and moved quickly to the bedside.

Raymond shook hands with the little man.

“Bad business! Bad business!”—the assistant chief of police of Tournayville continued to send his darting glances about the room, and the while he made absurd clucking noises with his tongue. “Yes, very bad—very bad! I came myself, you see.”

There was much about the man that afforded Raymond an immense sense of relief. He was conscious that he infinitely preferred Monsieur Dupont, assistant chief of the Tournayville police, to Sergeant Marden, of the Royal North-West Mounted.

“Yes,” said Raymond quietly, “I am afraid it is a very serious matter.”

“Not at all! Not at all!” clucked Monsieur Dupont, promptly contradicting himself. “We've got our man—eh—what?” He jerked his hand toward the bed. “That's the main thing. Killed Théophile Blondin, did he? Well, quite privately, Monsieur le Curé, he might have done worse, though the law does not take that into account—no, not at all, not at all. Blondin, you understand, Monsieur le Curé, was quite well known to the police, and he was”—Monsieur Dupont pinched his nose with his thumb and forefinger as though to escape an unsavoury odour—“you understand, Monsieur le Curé?”

“I did not know,” replied Raymond. “You see, I only——”

“Yes, yes!” interrupted Monsieur Dupont. “Know all that! Know all that! They told me on the drive out. You arrived this evening, and found this man lying on the road. Rude initiation to your pastorate, Monsieur le Curé. Too bad!” He raised his voice. “Well, Doctor Arnaud, what is the verdict—eh?”

“Come here and help me,” said the doctor, over his shoulder. He was replacing the bandage, and now he looked around for an instant at Raymond. “I can't improve any on that. It was excellent—excellent, Monsieur le Curé.”

“The credit is not mine,” Raymond told him. “It was Mademoiselle Valérie. But the man, doctor?”

“Not a chance in a thousand”—the doctor shook his head. “Concussion of the brain. We'll get his clothes off, and make him comfortable. That's about all we can do. He'll probably not last through the night.”

“I will help you,” offered Raymond, stepping forward.

“It's not necessary, Monsieur le Curé,” said the doctor. “Monsieur Dupont here can——”

“No,” interposed Monsieur Dupont. “Let Monsieur le Curé help you. We will kill two birds with one stone that way. We have still to visit the Blondin house. We do not know this man's name. We know nothing about him. While you are undressing him, I will search through his clothing. Eh? Perhaps we shall find something. I do not swallow whole all the story I have heard. We shall see what we shall see.”

Raymond glanced swiftly at Monsieur Dupont. Because the man clucked with his tongue and had an opinion of himself, he was perhaps a very long way from being either stupid or a fool. Monsieur Dupont might not prove so preferable to Sergeant Marden as he had been so quick to imagine.

“Yes,” agreed Raymond. “Monsieur Dupont is right, I am sure. I will assist you, doctor, while he makes his search.”

Monsieur Dupont stepped briskly around to the far side of the bed, and peered intently into the unconscious man's face, as he waited for Raymond and the doctor to hand him the first article of clothing. He kept clucking with his tongue, and once his eyes narrowed significantly.

Raymond experienced a sense of disquiet. Was the man simply posing for effect, or was he acting naturally—or was there something that had really aroused the other's suspicions. He handed the priest's coat, or, rather, his own, to Monsieur Dupont.

Monsieur Dupont began to go through the pockets—like one accustomed to the task.

“Hah, hah!” he ejaculated suddenly. “Monsieur le Curé, Monsieur le Docteur, I call you both to witness! All this loose money in the side pocket! The side pocket, mind you, and the money loose! It bears out the story that they say Mother Blondin tells about the robbery. I was not quite ready to believe it before. See!” He dumped the money on the bed. “You are witnesses.” He gathered up the money again and replaced it in the pocket. “And here”—from another pocket he produced the revolver—“you are witnesses again.” He broke the revolver. “Ah—h'm—one shot fired! You see for yourselves? Yes, you see. Very well! Continue, messieurs! There may be something more, though it would certainly appear that nothing more was necessary.” He nodded crisply at both Raymond and the doctor.

The vest yielded up the cardcase. Monsieur Dupont shuffled over the dozen or so of neatly printed cards that it contained.

“Là, là!” said he sharply. “Our friend is evidently a smooth one. One of the clever kind that uses his brains. Very nice cards—very plausible sort of thing, eh? Yes, they are. Very! Henri Mentone, eh? Henri Mentone, alias something—from nowhere. Well, messieurs, is there still by any chance something else?”

There was nothing else. Monsieur Dupont, however, was not satisfied until he had examined, even more minutely than Raymond had previously done, the priest's undergarments. The doctor turned from the bed. Monsieur Dupont rolled all the clothing into a bundle, and tucked it under his arm.

“Well, let us go, doctor!” jerked out Monsieur Dupont. “If he dies, he dies—eh? In any case he can't run away. If he dies, there is Mother Blondin to consider, eh? She struck the blow. They would not do much to her perhaps, but she would have to be held. It is the law. If he does not die, that is another matter. In any case I shall remain in the village to keep an eye on them both—yes? Well then, well then—eh? —let us go!”

The doctor glanced hesitantly toward the bed.

“I have done all that is possible for the moment,” he said; “but perhaps I had better call madame. She and mademoiselle have insisted on sitting up out there in the front room.”

Raymond's head was bowed.

“Do not call them,” he said gravely. “If the man is about to die, it is my place to stay, doctor.”

“Yes—er—yes, that is so,” acquiesced the doctor. “Very well then, I'll pack them off to bed. I shan't be long at Mother Blondin's. Must pay an official visit—I'm the coroner, Monsieur le Curé. I'll be back as soon as possible, and meanwhile if he shows any change”—he nodded in the direction of the bed—“send for me at once. I'll arrange to have some one of the men remain out there within call.”

“Very well,” said Raymond simply. “You will be gone—how long, doctor?”

“Oh, say, an hour—certainly not any longer.”

“Very well,” said Raymond again.

He accompanied them to the door, and closed it softly behind them as they stepped from the room. And now he experienced a sort of cool complacency, an uplift, the removal as of some drear foreboding that had weighed him down. The peril in a very large measure had vanished. The policeman had swallowed the bait, hook and all; and the doctor had said there was not one chance in a thousand that the man would live until morning. Therefore the problem resolved itself simply into a matter of two or three days in which he should continue in the rôle of curé—after that the “accident,” and this accursed St. Marleau could go into mourning for him, if it liked, or do anything else it liked! He would be through with it!

But those two or three days! It was not altogether a simple affair, that. If only he could go now—at once! Only that, of course, would arouse suspicion—even if the man did not regain consciousness, and did not blurt out something before he died. But why should he keep harping on that point? Any fool could see that his safest game was to play the hand he held until the “murderer” was dead and buried, and the matter legally closed forever. He had already decided that a dozen times, hadn't he? Well then, these two or three days! He must plan for these two or three days. There were things he should know, that he would be expected to know—not mere church matters; his Latin, the training of the old school days, a prayer-book, and his wits would carry him through anything of such a nature which might intervene in that short time. But, for instance, the mother of Valérie—who was she? How did she come to be in charge of the presbytère? What was her name—and Valérie's? It would be very strange indeed if, coming there for the summer to supply for Father Allard, he was not acquainted with all such details.

Raymond's glance fell upon the trunk. The next instant he was hunting through his pockets, but making an awkward business of it thanks to the unaccustomed skirt of his soutane. A bunch of keys, however, rewarded his efforts. He stepped over to the trunk, trying first one key and then another. Finally, he found the right one, unlocked the trunk—and, suddenly, his hand upon the uplifted lid, the blood left his face, and he stood as though paralysed, staring at the doorway. He was caught—caught in the act. True, she had knocked, but she had opened the door at the same time. The little old lady, Valerie's mother, was standing there looking at him—and the trunk was open.

“Monsieur le Curé,” she said, “it is only to tell you that we have made up a couch for you in the front room that you can use when the doctor returns.”

He found his voice. Somehow she did not seem at all surprised that he had the trunk open.

“It is very kind and thoughtful of you, madame.”

“Mais, non!” she exclaimed, with a smile. “But, no! And if you need anything before the doctor gets back, father, you have only to call. We shall hear you.”

“I will call if I need you”—Raymond was conscious that he was speaking, but that the words came only in a queer, automatic kind of a way.

She poked her head around the door for a sort of anxious, pitying, quick-flung glance at the bed; then looked questioningly at Raymond.

Raymond shook his head.

“Ah, le pauvre! Le pauvre misérable!” she whispered. “Good-night, Monsieur le Curé. Do not fail to call if you want us.”

The door closed. As once before in a night of vigil, in that far-north shack, Raymond stretched out his hand before him to study it. It was not steady now—it trembled and shook. He looked at the trunk—and then a low, hollow laugh was on his lips. A fool and a child he was, and his nerves must be near the breaking point. Was there anything strange, was there anything surprising in the fact that Monsieur le Curé should be discovered in the act of opening Monsieur le Curé's trunk! And it had brought a panic upon him—and his hand was shaking like an old man's. He was in a pretty state, when coolness was the only thing that stood between him and—the gallows! Damn that cursed moaning from the bed! Would it never cease!

For a time he stood there without moving; and then, his composure regained, the square jaw clamped defiantly against his weakness, he drew up a chair, and, sitting down, began to rummage through the trunk.

“François Aubert—eh?” he muttered, as he picked up a prayerbook and found the fly-leaf autographed. “So my name is François! Well, that is something!” He opened another book, and, on the fly-leaf again, read an inscription. “'To my young friend'—eh? and from the Bishop! The Bishop of Montigny, is it? Well, that also is something! I am then personally acquainted with this Monsignor Montigny! I will remember that! And—ha, these!—with any luck, I shall find what I want here.”

He took up a package of letters, ran them over quickly—and frowned in disappointment. They were all addressed in a woman's hand. He was not interested in that. It was the correspondence from Father Allard that he wanted. He was about to return the letters to the trunk and resume his search, when he noticed that the topmost envelope bore the St. Marleau postmark. He opened it hurriedly—and his frown changed to a nod of satisfaction. It was, after all, what he wanted. Father Allard was blessed with the services of a secretary, that was the secret—Father Allard's signature was affixed at the bottom of the neatly written page.

Raymond leaned back in his chair, and proceeded to read the letters. Little by little he pieced together, from references here and there, the information that he sought. It was a sort of family arrangement, as it were. The old lady was Father Allard's sister, and her name was Lafleur; and the husband was dead, since, in one instance, Father Allard referred to her as the “Widow Lafleur,” instead of his customary “my sister, Madame Lafleur.” And the uncle, who it now appeared was the notary and likewise the mayor of the village, was Father Allard's brother.

Raymond returned the letters to the trunk, and commenced a systematic examination of the rest of its contents, which, apart from a somewhat sparse wardrobe, consisted mainly of books of a theological nature. He was still engaged in this occupation, when he heard the front door open and close. He snatched the prayer-book out of the trunk, shut down the lid, and, with a finger between the closed pages of the book, stood up as the doctor came briskly into the room.

“I'm back a little ahead of time, you see,” announced Doctor Arnaud with a pleasant nod, and stepped at once across the room to the wounded man.

For perhaps five minutes the doctor remained at the bedside; then, closing his little black bag, he laid it upon the table, and turned to Raymond.

“Now, father,” he said cheerily, “I understand there's a couch all ready for you in the front room. I'll be here for the balance of the night. You go and get some sleep.”

Raymond motioned toward the bed.

“Is there any change?” he asked.

The doctor shook his head.

“Then,” said Raymond quietly, “my place is still here.” He smiled soberly. “The couch is for you, doctor.”

“But,” protested the doctor, “I——”

“The man is dying. My place is here,” said Raymond again. “If you are needed, I have only to call you from the next room. There is no reason why both of us should sit up.”

“Hum—tiens—well, well!”—the doctor pulled at his beard. “No, of course, not—no reason why both should sit up. And if you insist——”

“I do not insist,” interposed Raymond, smiling again. “It is only that in any case I shall remain.”

“You are a fine fellow, Monsieur le Curé,” said the bluff doctor heartily. He clapped both hands on Raymond's shoulders. “A fine fellow, Monsieur le Curé! Well, I will go then—I was, I confess it, up all last night.” He moved over to the door—and paused on the threshold. “It is quite possible that the man may revive somewhat toward the end, in which case—Monsieur Dupont has suggested it—a little stimulation may enable us to obtain a statement from him. You understand? So you will call me on the instant, father, if you notice anything.”

“On the instant,” said Raymond—and as the door closed behind the doctor, he went back to his seat in the chair.

The man would die, the doctor had said so again. That was assured. Raymond fingered the prayer-book that he still held abstractedly. That was assured. It seemed to relieve his brain from any further necessity of thinking, thinking, thinking—his brain was very weary. Also he was physically weary and tired. But he was safe. Perhaps a few days of this damnable masquerade, but then it would be over.

He began to turn the pages of the prayer-book—and then, with a whimsical shrug of his shoulders, he began to read. He must put the night in somehow, therefore why not put it in to advantage? To refresh his memory a little with the ritual would be a safeguard against those few days that he must still remain in St. Marleau—as Father François Aubert!

He read for a little while, then got up and went to the bed to look at the white face upon it, to listen to the laboured breathing that stood between them both—and death. He could see no change. He returned to his chair, and resumed his reading.

At intervals he did the same thing over again—only at last, instead of reading, he dozed in his chair. Finally, he slept—not heavily, but fitfully, lightly, a troubled sleep that came only through bodily exhaustion, and that was full of alarm and vague, haunting dreams.

The night passed. The morning light began to find its way in through the edges of the drawn window shades. And suddenly Raymond sat upright in his chair. He had heard a step along the hall. The prayer-book had fallen to the floor. He picked it up. What was that noise—that low moaning from the bed? Not dead! The man wasn't dead yet! And—yes—it was daylight!

The door opened. It was Valerie. How fresh her face was—fresh as the morning dew! What a contrast to the wan and haggard countenance he knew he raised to hers!

And she paused in the doorway, and looked at him, and looked toward the bed, and back again to him, and the sweet face was beautiful with a woman's tenderness.

“Ah, how good you are, Monsieur le Curé, and how tired you must be,” she said.