Thirty Hours with a Corpse, and Other Tales of the Grand Guignol

Thirty Hours with a Corpse

DAY HAD come at last. The two men looked at each other and although they did not move or speak, each read in the eyes of his companion relief—followed quickly by fear. With the growing light a murmur of voices came up from the newly awakened street. They waited tensely almost as if they expected some unknown accuser to burst open the door, rush in, and seize them.

An interruption such as that, or death, even, at the hands of an infuriated mob would have been welcome, anything that would somehow, some way, break the continuity of horror that had held them for hours speechless and motionless beside the dead body of a woman lying face downward on the floor.

But life was resuming its activities casually enough in the streets, sounds of opening shutters, the shrill cry of a vegetable vendor. It was this last sound that seemed to arouse the younger of the two men, Armand Barthe. Barthe’s eyes held a staring fixity of expression, but his lips trembled now. He hesitated for a moment, looked toward the window, then with a quick, convulsive movement picked up his overcoat and put on his hat.

“Where are you going?” Guiret asked sharply, before he had reached the door.

“Out—out—come with me—”

“You must be crazy. It won’t be long before the concierge will be up to do our rooms. He would find it and the police would be on our tracks before we could get out of Paris—”

“But—but we are lost, we are lost—”

“No!” Guiret denied vigorously, even though he could not, at the moment, see any way to escape the consequences of the crime.

Barthe usually deferred to his roommate on important questions. He appeared to gain a momentary composure, to feel almost reassured. He did not speak because he felt that Guiret had not yet made definite plans. Guiret was thinking, he knew that, and while he waited to hear the results of that thinking, he put his palms over his eyes, pressing them on the eyeballs, but even then he seemed to see the body.

“Armand—” Guiret said, so abruptly that Barthe started violently, as if awakened from sleep.

“What is it?”

“Get your big trunk—it’s empty, isn’t it?”

“Yes—” Barthe replied, but made no move to go.

Guiret got up impatiently, went into Barthe’s bedroom, and came out dragging the high, round-topped trunk after him. The sweat was running from his temples, for the trunk was heavy even though it was empty. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead, then unfastened the straps and lifted the cover.

“Yes, it will do,” he said. “Help me—”

“Help you?” Barthe questioned stupidly.

“Yes, yes!” Guiret cried out, suddenly tense, unnerved for a moment through the contagion of his friend’s terror.

“I—I can’t—”

“But we must!” Guiret insisted. “We must cram it inside some way. It’s our only chance. There is a train for Switzerland in two hours, another one later if we miss that. We’ll buy three tickets, two for us to Lausanne, the third to check the trunk somewhere else. We’ll be far away when the customs inspector tries to open it. We’ll cross Germany, go as far as Hamburg. There we will get a boat for somewhere.”

“But if we are suspected?”

“Why should we—two tourists—who would bother us? Come on, now—you take the head.”

For a few moments there was no sound in the room save their labored breathing.

“Wait—wait!” Barthe cried out nervously.

“What’s the matter now?”

“The head has fallen back—”

“Hold it up, then. Now—now press down. There, you see, it was quite simple—”

Barthe drew his hands back from the head that he had supported almost tenderly, a strange gentleness that grew out of his horrified remorse. He stepped back and, when he heard the snapping of the lock into place, he grasped the table for support. Guiret buckled the straps, then straightened up briskly.

“Call the concierge,” he said. Then he noticed that Barthe held his hat in his hand, his overcoat over his arm. “Never mind,” he said hastily, “I’ll tell him.” He opened the door, stepped into the hall, and called down the stairs: “Monsieur Legros—Monsieur Legros!”

The loud voice of the concierge responded: “What is it?”

“Will you give us a hand to take down a trunk?”

“I’ll be right up.”

Guiret came back into the room, closed the door, and hurriedly took his wallet from his coat pocket. “Take some money,” he said: “One never can tell. We might get separated.”

Barthe accepted the notes without counting them and put them in his pocket mechanically.

The heavy step of the concierge was heard on the stairs and Guiret swung the door wide.

“Good morning, Messieurs,” Legros said, under his habitual cordiality a note of surprise and disapproval: “Are you leaving?”

“For a little vacation only, to the south of France.”

Legros smiled cautiously: “You’re lucky. I wish I were in your shoes. I’d like to take a vacation.”

“That will come, my man, that will come,” Guiret said absentmindedly.

“Not at my age. I’m lucky to have a job when times are so hard—” He sighed regretfully and meaningly, thinking of the tip. “So this is the trunk—” He grasped one of the handles, lifted the trunk from the floor, and then allowed it to fall back again with a thud: “It weighs something, all right!”

Barthe became if possible more pallid, and Guiret felt called upon to explain: “Our study books are in there, and books are heavy.”

“That’s right,” Legros agreed amiably.

“It’s not too heavy for you, is it?” Guiret asked anxiously.

“No, oh, no—” the concierge protested. “I am over sixty, but there are few men who can lift more than I. Give me a hand. As soon as I have it on my back I can go it alone. Take hold, will you, Monsieur Barthe?”

Barthe came forward weakly, but Guiret pushed him aside. “I’ll do it. Come on, let’s go, Monsieur Legros.”

But Legros straightened up, no longer offering his broad back.

“You know I would like to help you, Monsieur Guiret, but I have remembered—I cannot take the trunk down.”

“Why not?” both Guiret and Barthe asked as if with the same breath.

“You owe three months rent, that’s why. Oh, I understand how it is with students. One has money from home to pay and it goes for amusements. That’s not a crime with young men like you. But the proprietor is very strict on these matters. Last month when you sold that mahogany chest of drawers he pulled me up about it, said that nothing was to go out of here until you had paid your back bill.”

“But we are leaving the rest of our things here, the rug, the curtains, the pictures.”

“I know all that, but—just the same I cannot take the trunk down.”

“But we’re going to pay the rent before we leave.”

“Oh, that’s different! Why didn’t you say so?” He stooped over as if to take the trunk, then straightened up again, his hands on his back.

“It can’t be much more than two thousand francs—” Guiret said lightly, taking out his wallet.

“That I do not know,” Legros replied, somewhat indifferently. “I’ll give you three thousand and you can keep the change for yourself.”

“Oh, no, I could not do that, Monsieur.”

“Why not?”

“You know as well as I that the bill must be made out by the proprietor.”

“Very well, very well!” Guiret said impatiently. “Ask him to make it out, then.”

“But he is not in Paris.”

“Not in Paris?”

“He will not be back until day after tomorrow. You should have let me know before. This is not like a hotel by the day where the proprietor always sits in the office. The rents are by the month, you know that, and you are three months—”

“But we want to leave right away—”

The concierge shrugged then smiled again genially as a solution offered itself: “Why don’t you go, then, take your small baggage and leave the trunk behind? I will send you the bill, you can send the money, and then I will forward the trunk.”

“Yes, and how many days will that take?” Guiret muttered after a moment, without glancing at Barthe. “We will be a week without our books. No, you must telegraph the proprietor at once to send the bill. How long will it take for it to get around?”

“Twenty-four hours, or a day and a half at most.”

“I don’t know what else we can do,” Guiret agreed, in a tone that he tried to make nonchalant.

The concierge cocked his ear and listened. “I am wanted below,” he said, and went out.

As soon as the door closed Barthe gave way to a spasm of trembling. “We are lost,” he whispered.

“Don’t be stupid. We are delayed, that is all. We cannot help it. Tell me how we can help it?”

“We cannot,” Barthe agreed, without abandoning his hopeless manner.

“Then what is there to do but wait calmly?” Guiret asked with irritation. “We both run the same risk. If I can be calm, why can’t you?”

“If I could get out for a little fresh air—I’ll go down, take a few turns, it doesn’t matter where—”

“No?” Guiret questioned sarcastically. “I suppose it doesn’t matter where you go to behave like a fool and attract attention to yourself ?”

“Then come down with me. It would do you good, too, to get some air.”

“I’m all right. What’s wrong with me? Someone must stay here.”

“But it’s locked.”

“There’s blood here.”

“Where!” Barthe exclaimed, as if startled all over again.

“Don’t talk so loud. Here—on the rug. I’ve covered it with the big chair. But if Legros started to clean—”

“Yes. You’re right. But I—”

He watched Guiret as he crossed to the door, turned the key in the lock, and then put it in his pocket.

The interminable hours must be passing. It could not be that Time stood still. By an unhappy coincidence the clock on the mantel had stopped, and neither Guiret nor Barthe had had their own watches for months. They heard the hour of midday strike. Fatigue immobilized them, but fear and hunger kept them awake. They did not realize that they were hungry, and their physical exhaustion was so great that there was no place for remorse.

Guiret would get up now and then, go into his bedroom, and wash his hands. He did this when Barthe stared at the trunk, Barthe who thought at one time that he saw the cover move. Guiret would stay in the bedroom until he believed that Barthe was not looking at the trunk, and then to justify his brisk return he would say:

“Did you speak, Armand?”

The first time, Barthe leaped to his feet and cried out nervously: “I didn’t speak, no, I didn’t say anything—no!”

After that he did not respond to the question. Somehow it seemed to mark an indefinite passage of time.

Suddenly Guiret burst out unexpectedly in a thin voice: “Will the day never end?”

Immediately he regretted his words, for Barthe passed into a sort of muffled hysteria. He threw himself downward on the divan, rolling his head among the pillows.

“Legros must have heard by now,” Guiret said cheerfully, trying to calm him. “Surely he will show up any moment now. Don’t let him find you like this.”

Barthe did not seem to hear. He remained face downward among the silken pillows, his shoulders lifting and falling with spasmodic shivers.

A little later Guiret spoke again: “It will be dark soon.” And again he regretted his words and resolved to remain silent. Barthe repeated the words with new terror: “Yes, you are right, it will be dark soon.”

The day seemed eternal. At last the shadows descended the length of the windows and gathered in the corners of the room. One by one the chairs became blurred, the trunk, however, in the middle of the room remaining visible, illuminated by a beam of light that seemed to come from nowhere. Guiret got up and went to the window and located the light from an apartment house window. He sighed and sat down again.

For a while the darkness brought peace to both of them, for it blotted out the trunk. Barthe tried to forget that it was there and succeeded until the obscurity suddenly became peopled with ghosts. He got up jerkily and fumbled about for the cord that lighted the reading lamp.

They faced each other again. The day was over, yes, but the night as many hours long was before them. Barthe stretched himself on the divan, turning toward the wall. His breathing became regular in sleep, then he lurched up with a choking gasp, awakened by the beginning of a nightmare that started with the events of the day before unrolling in memory toward that time when he had bent over her where she lay on the rug, and saw that she was dead.

At daylight Barthe got up, raised the shades, turned out the light, took his place again on the divan, face to the wall, and seemed to be soundly asleep.

“Now that he’s quiet, I can sleep,” thought Guiret, and lifted his feet on a stool, his head in the comfortable curved back of the armchair. In the beginning of that torpor where the will held but fragile control, he recalled vividly the events of the night before, events that he dare not think of in his waking moments for fear that once started on the path of memory he would find himself unable to stop when he reached the first premises of that terrible climax, the result of which was now securely locked and strapped in Barthe’s large trunk.

It had been a gay evening at the start. Guiret and Barthe had gone by special invitation to the apartment of Roland Marousse, a wealthy merchant, who found, in common with the two students, pleasure in card-playing and gambling. It was the first of the month and both Guiret and his roommate had received their allowances. It was planned that the three of them would go together to another apartment where they would meet other acquaintances. They had expected to find Marousse alone….

Guiret, half-conscious, knew that he was breathing heavily, as he had heard Barthe breathe when he first tried to sleep, and he knew that if he could not throw off the torpor of weariness, pull himself out of the swoon that he was in, he would like Barthe go on and on until he, too, awakened with a hoarse, strangled cry.

“No—no—no—” he muttered, and that was what he was saying when suddenly he sat bolt upright in his chair, rubbing his eyes with his palms.

How much time had elapsed, he could not tell. Possibly he had slept for a while before the recollections started to turn into the nightmare. He listened, hoping to hear a clock strike. From the sounds below in the street it must be ten o’clock or later.

“Armand—Armand—” he said tensely. “Wake up—someone is coming up the stairs!”

Barthe awakened with a start of fright and Guiret tried to calm him:

“What is there to worry about? It must be Legros. If he’s coming here who else could it be?” he asked confusedly.

He went to the door and unlocked it, opened it wide. Then he fell back into the room.

“Who is it?” Barthe asked, from the bedroom where he had gone as if to hide himself.

“Marousse!” Guiret exclaimed. “What on earth has brought you here so early?”

Marousse came into the room wearily. He seemed very tired and somewhat embarrassed.

“I was passing. I hope I do not disturb you.”

“No, no!”

Marousse looked at the trunk: “You are leaving—”

“For a short stay at Cannes. We are waiting for the concierge to bring the bill. Sit down—sit down—”

Marousse sat down uneasily and looked around the room. “Where is Barthe?”

“In his bedroom. He—he has a headache. Ill luck, too, when we have planned to take the train this afternoon. Armand—”

“Don’t bother him. I know how one feels with a headache. I’m none too well myself,” Marousse said wearily.

Guiret noticed that his usual jovial expression was lacking. He showed his age this morning. His body looked as if it had suddenly become emaciated.

A constrained silence seemed to weigh upon them. Guiret was the first to break it.

“Oh, Marousse,” he said, fumbling in his pocket. “Don’t let me forget that little sum of money I owe you.”

“Never mind. Let it go,” Marousse protested. “You’ll be back, won’t you?”

“Of course—but I want you to know that I wouldn’t leave— even for a trip without mentioning—”

“Never mind. I cannot think or care about money. I am too much disturbed.” He broke off, waiting for Guiret to question him. Guiret did not offer to do so and he went on: “I am terribly worried. Chouchou has not come back.”

“I have not seen her, not since she left us night before last.”

“But—I don’t understand—”

“Neither do I. You recall what happened. I should think you might well remember. Both you and Barthe lost so much at cards. You noticed, no doubt, that—” he hesitated, embarrassed, then forced himself to continue—”that Chouchou and I quarreled.”

“Yes, I mean I—I thought no more about it.”

“I was jealous, I admit. I should not have been, but I was. She was trying always to—to be alone with—well—” he lowered his voice—”with Barthe—you noticed, did you not?”

“Yes, I did—”

“She had won so much at cards from all of us I thought she should go on playing and I told her so—well, you know how she got angry at me in the taxi on the way home and got out and called a taxi to go to her apartment—I haven’t seen her since—”

“But that was night before last—”

“Yes! That’s why I am so worried. When I got to my apartment I telephoned her, you know, to find out if she was still angry. No answer. I called later, in an hour. Still no answer. You remember it was very late when we parted. I slept a little, then took a bath and changed my clothes, and telephoned again. Still no Chouchou—”

“Perhaps she was there but did not answer the phone.”

“That’s what I thought. I called a taxi and went to her place. The maid had not seen her. She had not been back that night. I knew she could not be shopping. She had not been back to change her clothes, and she would not go about in evening clothes in the morning. I waited a while. Ten o’clock, half past ten, then I decided to telephone her friends. No one had seen her. I went down in the street and waited for an hour before the door, watching the taxis go by, expecting, hoping every moment to see her step out.”

“And she did not?”

“Would I be here worrying about her if she had? You can understand that I was terribly uneasy—” Marousse seemed to be playing with words, repeating himself in an attempt to reach what he had come to say: “When night came again and the street lamps were on I lost my head completely, or I did the right thing, I don’t know. I went to the police.”

“You did!” Guiret exclaimed.

“What else could I do? What would anyone have done in my place? A well-dressed woman, with valuable jewels—Chouchou always carries a large sum of money on her. I have known her to go out with four thousand francs to buy a postage stamp. I am sure something terrible has happened to her—or—” He broke off and perspiration beaded his pasty forehead.

Guiret tried to think of something to say to calm him, for his own forehead was damp at the thought of Marousse going again to the police.

“What I am about to say may seem brutal, Marousse, but is it not possible that Chouchou— Are you quite sure that—I mean, if she were deceiving you with someone else that would explain—”

Marousse tapped his shoe with the end of his cane. He showed no resentment or surprise at what Guiret had said. On the contrary, after one or two attempts to speak, he seemed to agree by nodding his head.

“Yes, I have asked myself that,” he said, after a while. “And since you are frank with me, I will be frank with you. I had the firm conviction that you know where she is.”

“Me!” Guiret exclaimed.

“You need not pretend with me. I am no longer a boy, I am past forty-five, neither handsome nor clever. I have nothing except money to offer a pretty young woman like Chouchou. I understand that and would excuse many things.”

“I don’t see what you’re trying to get at,” Guiret said.

“I am neither a fool nor blind. I tell you that I could not help noticing that Chouchou and Barthe—before he lost so heavily at cards that he was depressed—did you not notice? What I mean to say is, I would be the happiest man on earth to learn that she is alive and well. That’s how much I have suffered with worry. Even though she had come here to wait for Barthe after she left us—”

“What a mad idea!”

“But you would say just that even if she had. I tell you, I will not make a scene. All I want to know is that nothing terrible has happened to her, that she is here—”

“Here—” Guiret repeated, turning pale. “No, no—I swear it.”

“You give me your word?”

“Yes, my word—”

But Marousse continued to stare at the door leading to the bedrooms.

“If it is necessary for you to convince yourself, Marousse—” Guiret said presently.

“Oh, no,” Marousse protested, flushing. “I must believe you.”

“But I don’t want you leaving here unless you really believe me, and there is only one way to prove—” He opened the door and indicated that Marousse might search.

Deeply embarrassed but holding to his firm purpose to purchase peace of mind at all costs, Marousse stepped into the bedroom. Barthe, lying on the bed, his hand over his eyes as if to shut out the light, did not stir, and Marousse tiptoed by him to inspect Guiret’s room, which was beyond.

“I must ask your pardon,” Marousse said to Guiret when they were again in the sitting-room. He sat down weakly on the trunk. The conviction which had whipped his courage deserted him. Guiret held himself very erect, icy in his manner.

“I can only think the worst now,” Marousse said.

“Wait until late tonight,” Guiret suggested. “Why make a fool of yourself if she— Anyway, if harm has already come to her what good will it do?”

Marousse did not seem to hear him. He picked up his hat and stick and went out slowly, almost regretfully, as if he sensed that in this room there was something that should have held him back.

“My God—” whispered Guiret, when the door had closed after him. “That time I thought we were surely gone!”

“Yes,” Barthe said, for he had come to the doorway and was standing there weakly, as if the strength had left his limbs.

He seemed more composed, however, and Guiret calmed himself, spurred on by what he believed to be a necessity—to tell Barthe of his plans before he could sink again into the hopeless terror that seemed always ready to engulf him.

“If Legros is downstairs when we leave I shall direct the driver of the taxi to the East Station. I can change the order later. Whatever happens do not show surprise by a gesture or word at anything I do. There must be one head to this. Is that understood?”

“It is understood,” Barthe agreed, and he added, thinking for the first time of his physical misery, “God, but I’m tired! If I could only snatch a little sleep.”

“But you’ve been sleeping since daylight! We must hold ourselves in readiness. Later, perhaps, but first of all, be ready.”

It was not long after that he heard a clock strike ten. He wound and set the clock. The minutes seemed longer with the exact knowledge of their passing.

“I wonder why Legros does not show up?” he said after a while, and restlessly opened the door and went to the landing to look down and listen for voices. When he came back into the room he recoiled and paled, for it seemed to him that the air was already impregnated with a vague and terrible odor.

“What’s the matter?” Barthe asked, noticing his sudden pallor. “Is anything wrong?”

“I hope we can get away soon.”

He cried out with joy when a few minutes later he heard Legros’ steps on the stairs. Legros knocked at the door and showed a smiling face.

“Monsieur Guiret, here is the bill.”

“That’s fine!”

He went through the formality of verifying the addition, but the figures danced madly before his eyes.

“Two thousand, one hundred and sixty-two francs is correct, is it not?” Legros asked.

Guiret had opened his wallet. There were two one-thousand-franc bills but no change.

“What have you got, Barthe?”

Barthe had no change either.

“We’ll have to get this five hundred franc bill changed,” Guiret said, and handed it to the concierge.

“That may not be so easy around here. I may have to go to the Post Office.”

“Well, go then—”

“But I cannot go just now, Monsieur Guiret. You see I am alone downstairs. My wife has gone to market and I cannot leave the premises. The proprietor is very strict about that. Someone might come to look at the apartments.”

“But we can’t wait around here until your wife gets back!”

“You could go yourself, or Monsieur Barthe—”

“Monsieur Barthe has a headache and I am waiting here for someone.”

“My wife will not be gone long. Surely in half an hour—”

“But we’ll miss our train.”

“We could gain time this way,” the concierge suggested. “I could take your baggage down now and leave it in the corridor. And coming back from getting the change—that is, after my wife returns so that I can go—I could call a taxi.”

“Leave the trunk downstairs in the corridor?”

The thought of that seemed to lay an icy hand upon both of the men. Only when they watched it did they feel relatively secure. It seemed to them that peril commenced the moment they ceased to watch it. When that time arrived they must be speeding away in the opposite direction.

“Why not?” Legros asked, and it was then that Guiret realized that he had spoken aloud.

“Because even then there might not be time.”

Legros shrugged. Barthe started to pace the floor. Guiret tried to think of something to say to reassure him, although he himself felt that he was perilously near the breaking point. What if the nervous tension that held him together should suddenly desert him at the decisive moment! Already he could see that one could not definitely plan on anything. There were always unexpected delays.

Legros left and went downstairs and Guiret turned to Barthe:

“You see how well I’m planning things? I told him that we were leaving soon. That’s to give us plenty of time and also so that he won’t know where we are going. Our train does not leave for two hours. We have plenty of time.”

“Too much time. Let’s get some air. He is downstairs waiting for his wife. He did not clean yesterday because we are giving up the rooms, so why should he want to clean today until we are out?” In the chaos of his thought a single idea persisted, to get out of the room away from the trunk, which he did not wish to see but upon which, in spite of himself, his gaze was constantly fixed.

“You should not make me waste my breath to repeat to you that we should not budge a foot from here until things are settled and we can leave for good. A single false word or gesture—”

“What have I said now?” stammered Barthe. “Did I speak a-again?”

“Do you not know whether you speak or not?” Guiret questioned loudly, then lowered his voice: “Someone is coming.”

“More than one, too.”

“Well, we aren’t the only persons living in the house.”

Nevertheless he found himself counting the steps, heard them cross the landing, then started counting again. Strangely enough he had never thought of it before, but now he remembered that there were twenty-three steps. When the last footstep resounded under the heels, Guiret reached for a bottle that was near, half-filled with brandy. His hand closed convulsively over the neck. He stood against the wall by the door. Someone rapped. He did not speak. A second rap, then a voice:

“Open up. I happen to know you’re there.”

“Who is it?” Guiret asked through the door.

“Marbois, sheriff’s officer.”

“Sheriff’s officer!”

“A judgment was given against you on the sixth of December. I am here at the request of Messieurs Bardier and Gordane, Tailors. Will you be kind enough to let me in?”

With a sigh of relief Guiret put the bottle down and opened the door.

Marbois entered followed by his man.

“It is three thousand, six hundred and sixteen francs and that includes costs,” he said. “Can you pay it?”

“No, Monsieur,” Guiret said firmly, with a warning glance at Barthe.

“Then I must make an attachment.”

“All right. Do so.”

Marbois sat down at the table, took out a sheet of stamped paper and a fountain pen.

“The furniture here, it is yours?”

“Not all of it. The bed, the table, the chairs, you cannot touch. You know that. They are our tools of work. The rugs, the draperies, the pictures and the bookcases are ours.”

The assistant commenced his inventory in a high-pitched voice:

“A bookcase with glass doors, bronze lamp, Chinese rug—”

“But—” Barthe began nervously.

Guiret scowled at him and he did not speak again until the sheriff’s officer and his man had gone into the bedroom.

“But we have money to pay.”

“Don’t be stupid! What would be left for us, then? We must buy the three tickets, and then there’s our living expenses where we’re going.”

“That’s right.”

Marbois came back into the living-room briskly. “Will you sign this, please?”

Guiret took the pen in a steady hand. He was about to write his name when the officer interrupted him.

“Wait a moment, we’ve forgotten something.”

“What?”

“This trunk.”

“But that is our trunk.”

“I know that. But will you be kind enough to open it?”

“Will I—what?”

“Open it.”

“Why?” Guiret asked.

“How do I know that it does not contain property that should he inventoried?”

“There’s nothing there except our books, our papers. They constitute our tools of work and cannot be attached.”

“That is true, but I must assure myself.”

“I give you my word, Monsieur.”

“Don’t waste time. Let’s get at it.”

“But I say—did you not hear what I told you? It contains our personal belongings—” Guiret’s tone was that of a man who would not tolerate that his word should be questioned.

The officer took a pompous voice now: “If my presence here and my insistence on doing my duty annoys you, you can get rid of both by paying.”

Guiret drew himself erect proudly: “I have no lessons to take from you, Monsieur.”

“I ask you for the last time, will you open it?”

“And if I refuse?”

“I am here to take legal judgment. I will go to the Commissioner of Police who will doubtless authorize me to return with a locksmith.”

“All right, do that!” Guiret said angrily, playing for time. “Before the police I will do what is necessary. But I forbid you to so much as put your hand upon it.”

The officer drew back slightly before the pallid, distorted, angry face that was lifted defiantly toward him, then with a commanding gesture of warning to Guiret to stay at a distance he spoke to his man:

“Ask the Commissioner to send a gendarme.”

But Guiret had been thinking rapidly. A moment before he had intended to get rid of these men some way, any way, and flee with Barthe. That was neither wise nor necessary.

“All right, I’ll pay you.”

“Why didn’t you say that before?”

“And if I do you will not insist on opening the trunk?”

He asked this question in a heavy constricted voice and the officer glanced at him suspiciously and took his time before replying.

“If you pay that annuls the attachment.”

“Very well, I will pay.”

He opened his wallet, having forgotten for the moment that he had given the concierge a five-hundred franc bill to change. The sweat broke out on his forehead, but he recovered quickly and turned to Barthe.

“What about it, Armand?”

“But you said yourself—that we—” Barthe stammered.

“Will you give me the money and bring this to an end?”

Barthe took out his wallet slowly. “I think you’re wrong, but—”

Guiret snatched the bills from him: “How much was it, did you say?”

“Three thousand, six hundred and sixteen francs, including costs.”

Guiret found the strength to be ironical: “Justice is not for nothing, I see!”

When he counted the money he saw that he had only three thousand francs.

“Take this and I’ll send you the rest,” he said.

“You know I cannot do that.”

“But I give you my word to send you the rest tomorrow, this afternoon if you wish.”

“My orders are formal. And anyway if you intend to pay, it is not important. In a few hours when you get the money as you say you will have it, you can pass by the office and pay. You have twenty-four hours to do that after the attachment.

“So, if you’ll let me throw an eye in that trunk—”

“No—no—no!” Guiret stammered. Then as he felt the other’s curious gaze resting upon him: “There you go again, doubting my word!”

He felt a sort of madness gaining upon him. It entered his head to throw himself upon the sheriff’s officer and strangle him, stop forever that insistence of his on opening the trunk. But the other man was there and at the first gesture he would enter into the struggle and Barthe was trembling so much that he would be of no help, doubtless would run at the first sign of conflict. Reason came at last.

“How stupid I am! Legros, the concierge, has five hundred francs that I gave him to get changed. He is waiting for his wife to get back. Perhaps he’s downstairs. Or if he’s not then he’ll be back soon with the change. Armand, go down and see—” But as Barthe moved eagerly toward the door, Guiret caught a glittering, mad, desperate light in his eyes: “No, no, you stay here, Armand. I’ll attend to all this. You realize that I am doing my utmost to get the money, do you not, Monsieur?”

His face was so pale, his eyes so distracted that after he went out, the sheriff’s officer spoke to his man: “Follow him,” he said.

Barthe, who had seated himself in the armchair, weak with relief when the affair seemed to have been arranged, looked up tensely, when he heard the officer give the order.

“I know who you are,” he said.

“Well, I know that myself,” Marbois said, shortly. “What’s the matter with you fellows, anyway?”

“You’d like to know what’s in that trunk?” Barthe asked.

“What’s all this about the trunk?”

“You’d like to know, wouldn’t you? That’s what you say to us. You know all right. Books in the trunk, eh? You know better.” He unfastened the straps, took out his key-ring which Guiret had given back to him after he had taken it from him to lock the trunk. “You’re a brave man, I hope.” With a swift turn of the wrist he turned the key: “Quietly, please. She’s asleep, that’s all. Yes, she’s there, and you’ll agree with me she’s very pretty.”

He lifted the cover with careful deliberation. An odor rose like a cloud into the face of the sheriff’s officer. The flesh on the body was mottled, there was a large hole in the breast, the lips of which had already turned purple. Marbois fell back and uttered a startled cry. Barthe laughed:

“It’s worse than you thought, eh?”

Just then Guiret pushed the door open, the change in his hand, a smile on his face. He saw the open trunk, he stared for a moment at the two men in the room, then turned to flee. The man who had followed him was coming in the door. They grappled.

“Armand—Armand—help—help me out—why do you stand there—help—”

But Barthe was seated again now: “He’s not the sheriff’s man. He’s from the police. He didn’t fool me. Marousse sent him here—Marousse sent him here—”

Guiret passed quickly from frenzy to complete submission. The money was scattered all about him on the floor and he stooped to pick it up.

“I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it,” Barthe was saying. “She came here to see me. She had money, all the money that she had won and we had lost. We asked her to give us some of it—she wouldn’t—”

“Yes, yes—” Guiret shouted, eager to shriek in a high voice the story of the events of that horrible night, words that he had repeated in a whisper for over thirty hours: “I killed her, yes. It was for the money and her jewels. Here—here is everything—” He threw on the table the jewels, tied in his handkerchief, a small distorted bundle bulging with bracelets and necklaces. He opened it and spread the jewels out: “See! She flaunted these before us. She wanted to talk to Barthe. Yes, she intended to run away with him. She flaunted her money and these when we had lost everything. I did not intend to kill her. I struck her in anger, then she threatened me—and I struck her again—and then—”

“He shot her—” Barthe said simply. “That was the way it all started.”