第36章

ARSENATE OF SODA

The mysterious hand held a phial and poured the entire contents into the potion.Then the hand withdrew as it had come, slowly, prudently, slyly, and the key turned in the lock and the bolt slipped back into place.

Like a wolf, Rouletabille, warning Matrena for a last time not to budge, gained the landing-place, bounded towards the stairs, slid down the banister right to the veranda, crossed the drawing-room like a flash, and reached the little sitting-room without having jostled a single piece of furniture.He noticed nothing, saw nothing.All around was undisturbed and silent.

The first light of dawn filtered through the blinds.He was able to make out that the only closed door was the one to Natacha's chamber.He stopped before that door, his heart beating, and listened.But no sound came to his ear.He had glided so lightly over the carpet that he was sure he had not been heard.Perhaps that door would open.He waited.In vain.It seemed to him there was nothing alive in that house except his heart.He was stifled with the horror that he glimpsed, that he almost touched, although that door remained closed.He felt along the wall in order to reach the window, and pulled aside the curtain.Window and blinds of the little room giving on the Neva were closed.The bar of iron inside was in its place.Then he went to the passage, mounted and descended the narrow servants' stairway, looked all about, in all the rooms, feeling everywhere with silent hands, assuring himself that no lock had been tampered with.On his return to the veranda, as he raised his head, he saw at the top of the main staircase a figure wan as death, a spectral apparition amid the shadows of the passing night, who leaned toward him.It was Matrena Petrovna.

She came down, silent as a phantoms and he no longer recognized her voice when she demanded of him, "Where? I require that you tell me.

Where?"

"I have looked everywhere," he said, so low that Matrena had to come nearer to understand his whisper."Everything is shut tight.

And there is no one about."

Matrena looked at Rouletabille with all the power of her eyes, as though she would discover his inmost thoughts, but his clear glance did not waver, and she saw there was nothing he wished to hide.

Then Matrena pointed her finger at Natacha's chamber.

"You have not gone in there?" she inquired.

He replied, "It is not necessary to enter there.""I will enter there, myself, nevertheless," said she, and she set her teeth.

He barred her way with his arms spread out.

"If you hold the life of someone dear," said he, "don't go a step farther.""But the person is in that chamber.The person is there! It is there you will find out!" And she waved him aside with a gesture as though she were sleepwalking.

To recall her to the reality of what he had said to her and to make her understand what he desired, he had to grip her wrist in the vice of his nervous hand.

"The person is not there, perfhaps," he said his head.

"Understand me now."

But she did not understand him.She said:

"Since the person is nowhere else, the person must be there."But Rouletabille continued obstinately:

"No, no.Perhaps he is gone."

"Gone! And everything locked on the inside!""That is not a reason," he replied.

But she could not follow his thoughts any further.She wished absolutely to make her way into Natacha's chamber.The obsession of that was upon her.

"If you enter there," said he, "and if (as is most probable) you don't find what you seek there, all is lost! And as to me, I give up the whole thing."She sank in a heap onto a chair.

"Don't despair," he murmured."We don't know for sure yet."She shook her poor old head dejectedly.

"We know that only she is here, since no one has been able to enter and since no one has been able to leave."That, in truth, filled her brain, prevented her from discerning in any corner of her mind the thought of Rouletabille.Then the impossible dialogue resumed.

"I repeat that we do not know but that the person has gone," repeated the reporter, and demanded her keys.

"Foolish," she said."What do you want them for?""To search outside as we have searched inside.""Why, everything is locked on the inside!""Madame, once more, that is no reason that the person may not be outside."He consumed five minutes opening the door of the veranda, so many were his precautions.She watched him impatiently.

He whispered to her:

"I am going out, but don't you lose sight of the little sitting-room.

At the least movement call me; fire a revolver if you need to."He slipped into the garden with the same precautions for silence.

>From the corner that she kept to, through the doors left open, Matrena could follow all the movements of the reporter and watch Natacha's chamber at the same time.The attitude of Rouletabille continued to confuse her beyond all expression.She watched what he did as if she thought him besotted.The dyernick on guard out in the roadway also watched the young man through the bars of the gate in consternation, as though he thought him a fool.Along the paths of beaten earth or cement which offered no chance for footprints Rouletabille hurried silently.Around him he noted that the grass of the lawn had not been trodden.And then he paid no more attention to his steps.He seemed to study attentively the rosy color in the east, breathing the delicacy of dawning morning in the Isles, amid the silence of the earth, which still slumbered.