Public-domain ebook
The House of the Secret (La maison des hommes vivants)
Language: en513 downloads on Project Gutenberg
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In: Crime, Thrillers and Mystery·Novels
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #65709.
The opening · free to read
I
This day, January 20, 1909, I have decided to set my story down in writing. Dangerous and terrifying the task! But I must perform it. For day after tomorrow I shall be dead. Day after tomorrow.... Just two days! And death from old age! Of this I am as certain as a man can be of anything. What, then, have I to lose by speaking?
Speak I must!
That much I owe to the unsuspecting men and women who are to survive me. They are in danger; and I must warn them.... Day after tomorrow I shall be safe. Day after tomorrow I shall be dead.... And this is my testament and last will, written in my own hand! To all men and women, my brothers and my sisters, I bequeath--a Secret, the Secret. May my death serve as a warning to them, one and all! Such is my last will and testament....
Now I am quite in my right mind--let there be no doubt of that. I am sound, absolutely sound, in mind and, for that matter, in body. I have never known what it means to be sick. But I am old, old beyond human experience of age. How old, I wonder? Eighty? A hundred? Make it a hundred and fifty! It really doesn’t matter. I have nothing to decide the question. You might find my birth certificate, papers I may have written, people who may have known me. Such things would not help. Not even my own sensations give me any accurate impression of my actual age. I have been old for such a very few days! I have had no time to grow accustomed to the sudden change. There is no comparison, either, between my absorption of the centuries and ordinary old age--this last, indeed, has never been mine. I became what I am instantaneously, one may say.
I am cold, inside here, in my blood, in my flesh, in my bones. And tired, horribly, unendurably tired, with a fatigue that sleep cannot alleviate! My arms and legs are heavy and my joints are stiff. My teeth are chattering. I cannot bring them together on my food. I struggle to stand erect; but my shoulders stoop inexorably. I am hard of hearing. My eyes are dim. And these infirmities are the more excruciating because they each are new. No living man, I am sure, has ever been quite as miserable as I.
But it will all be over in two days! Forty-eight hours! Two thousand eight hundred and forty-eight minutes! What is a matter of two days? The prospect fills my heart with hopefulness; though death, in itself, is a terrible thing, far more terrible than living men imagine. That I know, as no one else knows. But I am ready! The life I am leading has ceased to be anything resembling life.
So then, I am in my right mind. My head is clear. Furthermore, I am about to die. Two considerations, these, that should dispel all doubt as to my veracity. A man does not lie when he stands on the threshold of Eternity! So I beg of you who find this little book of mine, of all you who read this story of my Adventure--in the name of your God, if you have one, do not doubt me! I am not spinning you a yarn, nor telling you a tale for an idle hour. A great danger hangs over you, over your son, your daughter, your wife, your dear ones! Do not scorn my warning, therefore! Do not shrug your shoulders, or tap your forehead! I am not a lunatic! And death is standing near you! Do not laugh, either. But read, understand, believe--and, then--do as your best judgment dictates.
Forgive me if I write with a trembling hand. The words may seem faint, almost illegible, at times. I found a pencil lying in a gutter on the roadside. Its point is dulled, and it is too short for my stiffened fingers. And this paper--from a funeral register--is not of the best. Its broad black border leaves very little space and compels me to cramp my lines. A broad black border! How inconvenient! Yet how appropriate! This funeral page is perchance the best for such a story as mine!
Here I begin. And again I beg of you; doubt me not, but read, understand, believe!
Ii
It all started with a letter from Colonel Terrisse, commander of field artillery, to Vice-Admiral de Fierce, commander-in-chief of the Western Mediterranean, prefect of the Maritime reserve, line-officer, and governor of the fortress of Toulon. The letter in question came in to Staff Headquarters by the evening mail of Monday, December 21, 1908. Notice now! That was the twenty-first of last December. It is now the 20th of January, 1909. Not quite a month ago! It will be a month tomorrow, day for day. A month! One single month! Gods of Heaven and Hell!
The Colonel’s letter reached Headquarters by the evening mail--military headquarters, you understand, not the naval. At Toulon, as is the case with similar stations, the vice-admiral in command functions in a double capacity as maritime prefect and military governor. His residence is the mansion of the prefecture; while his adjutant occupies the governor’s house. There are thus separate offices communicating by telephone. The wire is for obvious reasons a private one, independent of the city “central.”
I was in the officers’ room when the mail came in; and I opened the letter. Among my duties was that of reading and sorting the correspondence of the military commander. I was a captain of cavalry detailed to the General Staff. I was young--just thirty-three--thirty-three, mark you! And that was less than a calendar month ago! Four weeks and two days ago, to be exact.
I opened the letter; and read it. It was a matter of no great interest that I could see. I am going to transcribe it textually, however, for I can see it right before me now.
Sir:--
I have the honor to report that telegraph poles Nos. 171, 172, 173, 174, 175 are down as the result of a wash-out occurring on Dec. 19th last, and that, in consequence, the Tourris-Grand Cap line is out of commission.
I have issued the necessary orders for repairs. In view of the heavy rains and the long distance the repair crew will have to cover over muddy roads, it is probable that the poles cannot be in place again under forty-eight hours. All communication by wire between Toulon and Grand Cap will accordingly be impossible for that length of time.
I need not observe that, in peace times, Toulon and the Grand Cap have nothing of importance to say to each other, with the single exception of days when there is target practice. The Grand Cap is one of the mountains in the chain east of Toulon. It is a bold, forbidding pile of rock, crowned with a modern and fairly strong battery. Ordinarily the place is held by a corporal’s guard, a full garrison being stationed there only during periods of manœuvre. The country around the mountain is a rough uncultivated heath virtually uninhabited. Charcoal burners camp there from time to time; but there are no farms nor permanent settlements. The wire leading to that God-forsaken place could be down for more than two days without the world’s coming to an end on that account! I was intending to file the colonel’s letter and let it go at that, when the telegraph corporal knocked at the office door.
“A call for you, Captain,” he said, “from Naval Headquarters!”
“I’ll be there directly,” I replied.
As I rose from my chair, I chanced to look at the clock over the fireplace.
It was three P.M., to the minute.
I stepped down the corridor to the telephone booth, which was in the adjoining room.
I took up the receiver.
The voice calling me by name over the wire, was, as I recognized to my surprise, that of Vice-Admiral de Fierce, himself.
“Hello! That you, Narcy!”
“At your service, Admiral!”
“Barras tells me you have a horse down at Solliès-Pont. Is that right?”
“Quite so, Admiral. I left my bay down there, last night.”
“What condition is he in? Pretty good?”
“Excellent! Hasn’t worked for some days. I was intending to use him tomorrow, for the inspection at Fenouillet.”
“Splendid! However, the inspection at Fenouillet is off. But I’ve got a dirty job to attend to; and I don’t see anybody handy except you.”
“Quite at your service, Admiral!”
“Good!... You know the wire is down between here and the Grand Cap?”
“I just received a letter to that effect from Colonel Terrisse.”
“Now that’s a nuisance, just at this moment. The guard up at the battery there must be informed at all hazards that the seventy-fives will be working over at Roca-Troca tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, Admiral?”
“Yes, firing starts at noon. We can’t put it off, because General Felte must get away from Toulon tomorrow night at the latest. They’re going to shell the approaches to the mountain; and we’ve got to warn any wood-choppers there may be in the neighborhood. Otherwise somebody will be getting hurt! What time is it now, Narcy?”
“Three five, Admiral.”
“How far do you make it, from here to Solliès-Pont?”
“Ten or twelve miles.”
“Good! Well, telephone your orderly ... you have a man down there, haven’t you?...”
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