The new terror
My hair must have stood on end with horror and both of us were
conscious only of a feeling of unspeakable dread.
Without concerning ourselves with the seconds, or making the least
explanation, we left the entire business of the duel and hurriedly
flung ourselves into a gondola. Not a word was spoken on the way.
Moreover I felt that I should go mad.
On reaching the hotel we made a rush for Cordélia’s room. Everything
seemed quiet, and precisely as I had left it. I was filled with a
great hope; and yet my hand shook so much that I was unable to put the
key in the lock. It was Patrick who opened the door.
We darted into the room. Cordélia was still lying on the sofa, but her
face already wore an unearthly look, and drops of blood stained her
dressing-gown near her throat. She had been killed by a bullet through
the heart.
CHAPTER XVIII
AND NOW ...
And now this pierced heart which the greatest thief that ever lived had
burgled from its bodily prison is all mine. I can kneel in peace before
the urn in which I have reverently enclosed it. No one can rob me of it
now.
It was when it was still swayed by all the emotions of life, it was
when its ardent beating animated an adored wife, that a villain strove
to make a splendid victim of it, and to take it by force from my very
arms; but now when it is no more than a little dust and a great memory,
no one will contend with me for it.
During the terrible proceedings at the Assize Court, where the case was
regarded as the most extraordinary that had come before the ordinary
judicial bench within the memory of man, I clearly perceived that
the man who stole Cordélia’s heart no longer cared about her who had
been his victim. Not once in the course of the trial, which excited,
without satisfying, the world’s curiosity—not once did the thief cast
a glance on the table in which lay the material evidence—this sacred
relic which had come from the hands of the “experts”; while I, alas,
could not remove my sorrow-stricken eyes from it.
O heart of Cordélia, I alone loved thee! My rival was never anything
but an artist.... But I, O Cordélia, I was never anything but a poor
man in love, and I am still but a poor man in love before your dead
heart as I was before your living heart.... The little that I may have
of you I am taking away. With a trembling hand I have removed your
beloved heart from its legal receptacle to this funeral urn. It will
never, I think, be stolen from me again.
I no longer feel the shadow of the thief over me. And yet in spite of
my perfect assurance of peace I have had another lock placed on the
door of the retreat to which I have withdrawn from my fellow-men.
I have endeavored in this seclusion to fulfil the chief duty which
I owe to myself and others. I have set down here the various
circumstances which, to my knowledge, preceded, paved the way for,
and accompanied the terrible tragedy. I have told in plain language
how these things came to pass, even though they may seem entirely
improbable. If the reader will follow me step by step and believe me,
he will understand.
It was because the Assize Court did not believe me that they failed to
understand. And yet I did not spare myself. I took on my own shoulders
the responsibility for the whole fatal incident. Why did they not
proceed against me? I say that it was I who killed her.... The misery
of it! I may rejoice to-day that Cordélia’s heart will not again be
stolen from me, because it is dead. And it was I who killed it. I shout
it aloud and I repeat: Do not doubt it since I myself no longer doubt
it.
The preliminary investigation took some time, and was postponed by the
illness which came upon me as a result of the tragedy. When I was in
a position to give evidence I found that the authorities were on the
wrong scent as was to be expected.
Surdon, for instance, was arrested on the plea that he possessed a
revolver from which one bullet had been discharged. It was alleged that
he had made his way into his mistress’s room while she was asleep in
order to steal her jewelry.
This was so much obtuseness and stupidity, and how could it be
otherwise? The judges were confronted with the case of a woman killed
by a bullet through the heart in a room every part of which was closed,
the windows being shut on the inside and the door locked.
The most amazing thing was that a minute search failed to reveal the
bullet. It had passed through the body, but it could not be found
either in the sofa or walls. I myself knew where the bullet was. It was
somewhere in the public gardens in Venice.
The police were obliged to release Surdon, but they afterwards arrested
Patrick and kept him in custody until the trial at the Assize Court. A
post-mortem examination was held, and the expert’s report showed that
death was caused not by a shot from a revolver, but by a shot from
a pistol of the same bore as that of the pistols which Patrick had
procured for use at the duel.
As the magisterial enquiries proved that Patrick was prowling round
the Hotel Danieli during the night preceding and the morning of the
duel, nothing more was needed to enable the authorities to accuse
him of having entered Cordélia’s room at the hotel by means of some
master key, or some key that he managed to obtain beforehand from
an accommodating servant whom he had bribed to assist him in his
nefarious purpose. He had shot Cordélia out of jealousy to prevent her
from belonging to another if he were killed in the duel.... It was
simple.... How very simple it was!... Poor human nature!
The trouble was that a pistol shot causes a concussion, and no one in
the hotel had heard the least sound.
In vain Patrick denied the charge, recounting stories about the power
of suggestion and the communion of minds which made the Court laugh.
The reason for his presence near the Hotel Danieli on this particular
night was that I had requested him to send Cordélia to sleep so
that she should not interfere with our plan to fight each other, and
Cordélia could only be influenced by suggestion within a limited
distance.
When I corroborated his statement, and gave it as my opinion that
Cordélia had been killed in the Hotel Danieli by a shot fired by me in
the public gardens in Venice, the judges ceased to smile and evinced
considerable wrath. I was looked upon as a madman by some, and a fool
by others, and these people were greatly incensed with me for not
joining them in crushing Patrick. Cordélia’s father could not forgive
me for it, and left me to myself with contempt.
The press agencies reported the result as far as Patrick was concerned
in a few lines. The material proofs were too slight to justify a
conviction, and the jury acquitted him in spite of the efforts of the
public prosecutor.
Had the European political situation been less troubled, and had the
trial not taken place in a foreign country, the facts would not have
failed to create a tremendous sensation, as they deserved, for they
brought the judicial bench face to face with the greatest conceivable
drama, namely that which is enacted between the seen and the unseen
worlds.
Those dullards were utterly nonplused. I can still picture to myself
their look of confusion when Dr. Thurel, who was called as a witness
for the defense, explained that it was not absolutely impossible, from
the scientific standpoint, for Cordélia to have been killed by a bullet
which struck her astral body in the public gardens in Venice. That is
what Dr. Thurel called death by astral traumatism....
There is a Latin phrase which expresses it, a phrase which was in use
in the Middle Ages, but I cannot call it to mind.
CHAPTER XIX
THE LAST VISIT
O Cordélia, you died by my hand! If I still live, be assured that it is
by way of atonement. How often have I conjured up your image before the
mortal remains of your heart! How often have I called to you! But you
have never come to me!
For many days I was unable to add a word to these lines, and I
remained, as it were, paralyzed by the inscrutable mystery of life and
death, when one day the door of my cell was opened, and a man came in.
It was Patrick. He was but the shadow of his former self.
I thrust myself before the urn which contained my beloved’s heart. He
understood me and gave a bitter smile.
“Have no fear,” he said, “I leave it to you. What is her earthly heart
to me? I possess her heart which is in Heaven.”
I rose to my feet staggering like a drunken man under his words which
filled me with an agony of jealousy.
“What do you mean?” I asked hoarsely. “Do you still see Cordélia?”
He shook his head.
“Calm yourself, I do not see her,” he made answer. “She is too remote
from us, and I have never believed in spirits of the dead revisiting
this world. When I say that I possess her heart which is in Heaven, I
mean that I did possess it. Death has deprived me of it,” he went on in
somber, intense tones, “but death will restore it to me.”
“No more of that,” I exclaimed. “What has all this to do with me?”
“Well, if you look upon it in that light I don’t know why I am here.”
“Nor I.”
“I came to you, monsieur,” he said in a voice of wonderful dignity,
“to ask you if you have any message for her, for she loved you
sincerely—you too!”
“She loved me only,” I asserted, yet strangely perturbed by his manner
and words.
He sighed and shook his head once more.
“You thought so, but that was impossible,” he objected gently,
“otherwise she would still be of this world.”
“So it was you who killed her, or at least were responsible for her
death? I always thought so!”
“It was you and I. It was both of us,” he declared in a tone of great
dejection. “Yes, I, on my side, was to blame. I was too eager in my
frenzy, in my longing for her spirit, in the love which consumed me
for her ego, to separate her mind from her body, but you—you were too
eager to separate her body from her mind. We were marching toward an
inevitable catastrophe.”
His words struck me like a sword, and I did not interrupt him.
“It shows,” he went on, turning toward the door, “that we can only give
happiness to a being of this world if we bring to her a well-balanced
mind which we were unable to do. Had Cordélia met a little of you and
a little of me, in one and the same man, she would have been happy; at
least I like to think so. But where she is now her spirit needs only
her mind. I am going to her!... Farewell, monsieur!”
* * * * *
I read this morning in the newspapers the announcement of Patrick’s
death. It shall not be said that I allowed him to pursue Cordélia at
his will. I hear her calling me: “Save me, Hector! Save me!”
I, too, intend to become a pure spirit, and the sooner to achieve my
purpose, I shall make the same journey as Cordélia, and by the same
route. Though Patrick set out first he will arrive too late. He will
be deceived. The heart of Cordélia points the way that lies before me.
The bullet will enter my heart at the same spot at which it pierced
Cordélia’s heart. I shall breathe the same sigh which will lead me to
the same point in space where she awaits me.... I am persuaded of it!...
Dear, dear, dear Cordélia!
A TERRIBLE TALE
Captain Michel had but one arm, which he found useful when he lit his
pipe. He was an old sea dog whose acquaintance, with that of four
other old salts, I made one evening on the open front of a café in the
Vieille Darse, Toulon, where I was taking an appetizer. And in this way
we fell into the habit of foregathering over a glass within a stone’s