D A Novel (George Right)

HOUSE





"Monsieur, Count de Montreux wants to see you."

Jacques Dubois fastidiously frowned.

"Tell him that I can't receive him."

But the visitor, having resolutely moved the servant out of his way, had already entered the office. The thin lines of his thoroughbred face, a faultless suit, the subtle scent of an expensive lotion–everything about him spoke of his belonging to an old noble family which had nothing in common with the just-bought baronies of the nouveau riche; such attributes are formed by centuries. Even now de Montreux carried himself with dignity which did not well match the purpose of his visit.

"If you came to ask for a delay, count, you are wasting time," Dubois stated. "The term of your mortgage has expired, you haven't paid the money, and the house becomes mine by right."

"Nobody challenges your rights, monsieur," de Montreux answered, "I only ask you to understand my position. My ancestors lived in this house throughout three centuries. I understand your desire to obtain a fine old mansion and you are rich enough to do it. But besides my estate, there are others..."

"I like yours; let's finish with this."

"Monsieur Dubois, I'm not asking you to cancel my debts. You will receive the money, only a bit later, as soon as my circumstances recover..."

"Your circumstances will never recover and if you don't understand that, you're even a bigger fool than I thought."

"How dare you to speak to me that way!"

"I dare, Monsieur Armand Philippe Count de Montreux! I, the pitiful insignificant commoner on whose ancestors your ancestors could set the dogs just for entertainment, now speak with you as I like, and you will listen to me! You ruled France throughout centuries, gambled away huge fortunes out of boredom, and arranged Caligula-style orgies. You possessed everything–power, honor, women–but now your time is gone! You stupidly squandered the wealth stolen by your ancestors in crusades and feudal wars and wasted the life earnings extorted from those who earned their bread by the sweat of their brow–and now power has passed from you to those who actually deserve it. The third estate is everything, have you heard those words? In your aristocratic arrogance you didn't wish to lift a finger to save the situation; you despised commerce–oh certainly, to ply a trade is much less honorable than to rape peasant girls. Look at yourself, Count de Montreux! Even now, having reached utter ruin, you spend your last few francs on expensive suits and lotions! No, I feel not the slightest remorse taking your house from you. I receive it justly, I pay for it with money honestly earned, not inherited from a court lickspittle or from a robber in knight's armor."

The face of the count turned pale, his hand squeezed the knob of his cane, but de Montreux restrained himself. He turned abruptly and went back to the door. On the threshold he stopped and said almost indifferently:

"You will have no rest in my house. Neither you, nor your whore." Then he promptly left.

"Whore," thought Dubois, grinning, "yes, whore, so what? You'd think that his aristocratic maidens are pure virgins. In the whole history of France there was only one virgin, and even she was burned in a fire..." Dubois believed that in the field of wit he also did not yield an inch to the frequenters of aristocratic salons. His thoughts turned to Jeannette. He really had picked her up on the street–at the very beginning of her career, before the charm of youth could fade under the burden of her profession. Jeannette had lived with him for half a year already–and lived very well, as all these ruined countesses could only envy; she probably even herself remembered with surprise now the times when she had been a street prostitute. Recently she, perhaps, had gotten too spoiled and began to affect whims, but Dubois even found a special pleasure in it: to a man who from his early childhood had gotten used to making his way in life with teeth and claws, humility quickly becomes boring.

Dubois took a watch on a gold chain out of his pocket, darted a glance at the dial and stood up from the table. Tomorrow at this time, he thought, Jeannette would possibly feel herself almost a countess de Montreux.



The carriage passed through the gate decorated with the de Montreux coat of arms; the wheels crunched on the access avenue gravel. Having drawn back the window curtain, Jeannette was examining with curiosity her new dwelling, or, as Dubois called it, "the country house." The old three-storied mansion resembled more a fortress than a residence; its massive walls, accreted by moss at the bases, its narrow–especially in the eastern wing–windows, hiding in deep niches, its heavy shutters and doors gloomily contrasted with the cheerful summer sky and bright sun. Even the lush green of the garden inspired an ominous feeling, as if it was marsh grass hiding a deadly quagmire.

"It doesn't look too cozy here," said Jeannette doubtfully.

"The main building was constructed in the sixteenth century," Dubois answered in an expert tone, "and those were rather troubled times. Since then, of course, the house has been repaired and reconstructed more than once. But, nevertheless, this is the authentic home of a noble family. You will live here like a countess."

Jeannette answered nothing; she had no illusions about her future and understood that sooner or later she would bore Dubois and he would take a new "countess"–or even perhaps he would take a truly noble wife to live in his authentic aristocratic home. However, during the last half a year she had saved some money and also hoped for a generous parting gift; and then, of course, she would find another nouveau riche for whom the physical properties of a woman would be more important than her reputation.

On a porch they were met by Pierre Leroi, the majordomo employed by the new owner. Other servants gathered in the hall. Dubois dismissed them with an impatient gesture and said to Leroi, "Show us the house."

"Yes, monsieur," bowed the majordomo, "but maybe madam wishes to rest after the journey?"

Jeannette smiled. She had been called "madam," as if she indeed was the wedded wife of the owner of the estate.

"Madam will rest later," Dubois said. "Guide us."

"As you wish, monsieur."

They passed through a tenebrous hall with age-darkened portraits on the walls and a huge fireplace similar to an ancient tower, and then ascended a creaking wooden staircase to the second floor. Having passed some rooms whose furniture, apparently, hadn't been changed since the time of Louis XV, they stopped in front of a massive oak door.

"The count's office," the majordomo declared and pulled on the heavy bronze handle. However, the door didn't open.

"Strange... " murmured Leroi, "I remember that I left the door unlocked."

"Don't you have a key with you?" asked Dubois with a note of irritation in his voice.

"Yes, certainly... " the majordomo unlocked the door.

At the last moment in Dubois's brain a thought flashed that something was definitely wrong here, and he almost rudely moved Jeannette aside. In the next instant the door silently opened. In the middle of the room, facing the door, sat count de Montreux in an armchair. The shot had demolished half of his skull; his surroundings were splashed with blood and grayish drops of brain. The hand with the pistol powerlessly dangled from an armrest.

"What is it?" asked Jeannette with apprehensive curiosity, uncertainly trying to peer over Dubois's shoulder. He pushed her aside from the office.

"Nothing you should look at. De Montreux... he shot himself to annoy us."

Jeannette gasped in horror.

"Don't worry. Certainly, it's unpleasant, but nothing terrible has happened. People die every day in the thousands," Dubois turned to the majordomo. "How the hell did he get in here?"

"I do not know, monsieur," Leroi made a helpless gesture. "Certainly, the count had keys to all the doors and the main entrance is not the only way into the house. He could even have entered before the arrival of the new servants and hidden somewhere..."

"How could nobody hear the shot?"

"You see the heavy doors and thick walls here. If nobody was nearby, there is no wonder it was not heard."

"Damn, these aristocrats always were poseurs... Well, he might as well not have arranged such a spectacle for me; I am after all the thick-skinned bourgeois, the disgraceful and insensate money-bags– isn't that how they think of us? This man lived a worthless life and died a worthless death. All right, Leroi, take care of the formalities."

The formalities didn't take too much time. Police Inspector Leblanc and Doctor Clavier arrived; the investigation of the scene left them no doubt that Montreux had committed suicide, and the corpse was taken away.

"How many previous servants remained in the estate?" Dubois asked the majordomo.

"Three, monsieur. The gardener, who is too old to look for a new place, the cook, an old woman, hoping that the new owner will pay better than the former, and the groom, who is also the coachman–this fellow is indifferent to everything."

"So the others wished to leave the house when they knew that it would pass to me? Hm... a strange devotion taking into account that they were underpaid. The last thing we need now is new servants also running away because of this ridiculous incident. Bring them here all together."

Dubois addressed the servants with a short speech in which he said that he very regretted that the sad incident had happened, but nobody could be blamed for the death of count de Montreux.

"Neither I nor anybody else forced the count to live beyond his means and get into debt. When a man jumps from a cliff and smashes upon the stones, the man, not the stones, should be blamed. I will be an absolutely different owner than de Montreux; none of my people will have a reason to complain about a scanty or delayed salary. I always pay my bills."

Whether the words about salary worked, or the servants simply weren't as sensitive as Dubois had feared, none of them expressed a desire to leave. The servants had just left when suddenly Jeannette, finally convinced of the invariance of Dubois's plans, took courage and declared that she couldn't stay "in this awful house."

"Bullshit, Jeannette, what nonsense!" the businessman wearily waved his hand. "De Montreux tried to achieve exactly this–for us to refuse to live here. You surely don't want his mad idea to be a success?"

"Jacques, don't speak so... about the dead..."

"Dead he is even less dangerous than alive. Jeannette, we live in an enlightened era in an educated country. Don't stuff your pretty head with superstitious foolishness. De Montreux shot himself here, so what? Any house built more than a half century ago has witnessed the deaths of its owners."

"But this death... so terrible..."

"On the contrary, it was instant and painless. I am surprised by people's abnormal reaction to violent death. Natural death from an illness is often much more painful, however it excites nobody; but if a shot thunders anywhere, people immediately crowd together to shake in horror."

Jeannette didn't dare to insist further, understanding that it would only anger Dubois; but his cold logic couldn't dispel her melancholy and heavy presentiments. However, Jeannette's maid (she had a maid now like a real aristocrat), a humorous hoyden named Marie, didn't share the anxiety of her mistress and eventually even managed to make her laugh. But in the evening the fear began to overtake Jeannette again. The last reflection of the sun faded in the west; murky night fell on the house. The wind wandered in the foliage of the large garden; a lonely branch scraped a window as if someone unknown asked: "Let me... let me in..." From the windows of the bedrooms, there was only a view of the night forest; not a single spark was visible in that direction. Somewhere in the house old floor boards squeaked.

At last the door was opened, and Dubois entered Jeannette's bedroom where she was shivering with fear.

"Darling, how glad I am that you came!"

"I didn't come to talk," Dubois purred, untying the belt of his dressing gown.

Suddenly the moon came out of the clouds, illuminating the room with ghastly light; and at the same moment a high-pitched and lingering sound, dreary as the cry from a restless soul, reached from somewhere afar.

"My God, Jacques, what is it?!" Jeannette exclaimed in horror.

"A dog howled, nothing more," Dubois answered in an irritated voice, lowering himself heavily onto her. But in a few minutes he had to acknowledge with shame and disgust that he couldn't perform: the damned howl had distracted him and prevented him from concentrating. Upset and red with rage, Dubois left Jeannette's bedroom.



The next morning, having looked out of a window, Dubois noticed the groom walking through the yard with a bucket in his hand. The master called the servant and asked whether there were dogs on the estate.

"No, monsieur!" the fellow answered, coming closer to the window.

"No? But the village is quite far; what dog then howled last night?"

"Dog, monsieur?"

"Yes, of course; didn't you hear the howl?"

"It was not a dog, monsieur. It was a wolf howling in the forest."

"Wolf?" Dubois was surprised. "Are there wolves in this area?" He suddenly remembered that a wolf was on de Montreux's coat of arms and, sneering, he assumed he was going to hear a rural legend about a werewolf howling every time somebody from the count's family died. But instead of a legend the fellow simply answered:

"There are, monsieur, though not so many of them. Usually they don't bother us, especially now, at the end of summer, when there is still is enough food in the woods."

"Well, so I'll have something to hunt," Dubois said. Hitherto he hadn't participated in this landowners' entertainment, but he intended to make up for lost time.



Several days passed. Life in the estate became routine; nobody remembered, at least aloud, the tragic incident which had marred the arrival of the new owner. Dubois received mail reports from his managers, according to whom his business affairs were excellent. Even the wolf howl didn't disturb inhabitants of the house anymore. However, the feeling of vague anxiety still hadn't left Jeannette completely; she found it difficult to explain its reason herself, while Dubois believed that the cause was the baleful architecture of the ancient building and ordered it to be lit better in the evenings. However, he made no other changes in the archaic furnishings, wishing to keep the style of "an authentic home of a noble family." He was especially tender with Jeannette these days, and, in order not to look ungrateful, she hid from him her lingering feeling of discomfort.

But early one morning Dubois was awakened by a loud knock at the door.

"Monsieur, a very unpleasant incident!" he heard the majordomo's voice.

"What happened?"

"The gardener, monsieur... Usually in the mornings he came to the kitchen to drink a glass of milk and to chat with the cook. But today he didn't come, and the cook was worried whether he fell ill..."

"Briefly, what's the matter with him?"

"It looks like he is dead, monsieur..."

Swearing angrily, Dubois got out from under his blanket. Walking down the corridor, he saw Jeannette standing in a dressing gown at the threshold of her bedroom. Her face was pale and fear could clearly be read in her eyes.

"I hope, this time it's not a violent death?" Dubois inquired.

"I do not know, monsieur. Direct signs of violence are not perceptible. You'd better look yourself. The doctor and police were sent for already."

Mentally damning such an idiotic coincidence, Dubois followed the majordomo through the garden; his shoes and the tail of his gown immediately became wet with dew. On a bench in front of the gardener's cabin an old woman, the cook, cried and loudly blew her nose; one of the young maids tried to calm her. Dubois entered the cabin.

The old man lay in his underwear on the floor about a meter from his bed, twisted, with his bony white fingers grasping his breast. His blue face was distorted in a grimace of horror; on his lips foam had dried. "It's better to touch nothing till the police arrive," Dubois thought.

Soon Doctor Clavier arrived After greeting the owner of the estate and expressing an appropriate regret about the "sad incident," he passed into the room of the gardener. Then Leblanc appeared.

"It's unlikely there will be work for you, Inspector," Clavier informed him.

"You believe, it is a natural death?"

"No doubt. A heart attack which is certainly no wonder at his age."

"But the servant from the estate who fetched me said that the old man was strangled."

"No, nothing like that. Though such mistake is quite understandable just from looking at the body. In some way he really died of asphyxia, but it was caused by completely internal, not external, reasons."

"Well, Doctor, I rely on your competence. To tell the truth, untangling a murder case would be the least desirable thing for me. Monsieur Dubois, I regret very much that I have to pay a second visit to you due to such an unpleasant occasion. I hope that will not happen again. As my acquaintance, a lieutenant of artillery, says, shells don't land twice in one place."

Certainly, the death of the gardener made a depressing impression upon everyone in the house, and most of all on Jeannette. But Dubois did not let her even open her mouth.

"The old man died in his sleep from a heart attack; there is absolutely nothing unusual," he said in a peremptory tone. "We just have to hire a new gardener, that's all."

Jeannette sadly sighed.



Three days passed. On the morning of the fourth day a postman delivered a letter to Dubois. Having read it, the businessman declared to Jeannette that business affairs required his presence in Paris. Having heard this news, Jeannette turned away and bit her lip; it seemed she was just about to burst into tears.

"I will return tonight," Dubois said, "at the latest–tomorrow afternoon."

"And you will leave me alone in this awful house for all that time!"

"Alone? What are you talking about? The house is full of servants. Doesn't Marie entertain you anymore? And there is nothing awful in my house!"

"Jacques, please, don't leave me! I am so wretched here... without you."

"Jeannette, but I must go! The outcome of an important bargain depends on it."

"A bargain is more important to you than me!" Jeannette wanted to exclaim, but held her tongue. Dubois certainly would have answered: "Of course it is." He would have said this even to a wife, and she after all was only a concubine. Bought for trinkets, for expensive dresses, for the maid Marie... and, already unable to conceive her life without all this, thus was obliged to obey her master.

Dubois ordered the carriage prepared for travel and went to his office once again to look through some papers. After a while, having finished reading, he discovered with surprise that the carriage was still not ready. "How long is he going to dawdle?" the businessman impatiently muttered, meaning the coachman, and went out to the yard to clarify this question personally. The door of the stable was half-open; when nobody responded,to his loud call, Dubois, obeying an instinct, returned to the house and took a pistol with him back to the stable. His own alarm however seemed to him ridiculous: "Have I really begun to catch Jeannette's fears?" But any desire to laugh disappeared when he looked inside the stable through the half-opened door.

The coachman lay inside near the entrance with his head smashed; it seemed that after a crushing blow he had managed to crawl away to the doors before death overtook him. His murderer, the black stallion who never had demonstrated a violent temper before, was snorting, his eyes wildly staring, his blood-stained hoof kicking and beating the ground. In the next instant it broke its tether and charged directly at the startled Dubois. The latter, however, brought up his pistol and shot the horse almost point-blank. It fell and thrashed in agony; blood splashed from the wound in pulses. Dubois turned away in disgust.

This time Inspector Leblanc wasn't content with the doctor's statement about the obvious lack of traces of murderous intent. He gave Dubois a gloomy and distrustful look and declared that he would make a careful investigation and would interrogate everyone in the house.

"Goddamn!" the owner of the house exclaimed, "Are you saying that this was a murder!"

"I'm saying nothing, monsieur," the policeman answered coldly, "I only know that it is the third sudden death on your estate in just a few days. You see, three shells which land in one place are suspicious."

"But there is no connection between these deaths... and there is no sense in them. All of them are quite explainable. It's abundantly clear that this is just an unhappy coincidence."

"By the nature of my occupation, I don't believe in coincidences," Leblanc dryly noted.

This time, Leblanc's investigation took several hours. The inspector was still unable to find evidence that the incident was anything other than an accident. At last he left the estate obviously dissatisfied, having said upon departing: "Be careful, monsieur Dubois". This phrase could be understood doubly: "beware of the unknown killer" or "beware of the truth being found out."

After Leblanc's investigation was finished, it was too late to go to Paris. Besides a new coachman would have to be found. Dubois was compelled to abandon the trip, indignantly feeling that the good bargain was slipping away through his fingers. But his troubles weren't limited to his business dealings. Several servants simultaneously declared an intention to quit their jobs. Dubois nevertheless managed to dissuade them; he promised to increase their salary, understanding that if the servants fled, it would increase the ill fame of the house and he would have to pay even more to the next ones. In addition, the coachman's death caused a scene with Jeannette, who declared a categorical unwillingness to live "under one roof with death" (she probably found this expression in one of the trashy novels which she was recently reading in large numbers). Dubois at first tried to persuade her, then shouted at her, then finally settled the issue with an expensive necklace which he had been going to give her in a more suitable situation. He thought at this moment that, had the most virtuous spouse been in Jeannette's place, the dispute still would have been solved in the same way, so contempt toward prostitutes is completely unjust: all women are equally venal.



Soon a letter informed Dubois that his worst presentiments had come true: his rival had used Dubois's canceled trip to his own advantage and what should have made profits turned into losses. It seemed that everything pushed Dubois to leave the house and to return to the city; however he was stubborn and wasn't accustomed to shrink back before obstacles–on the contrary, the more serious the impediments seemed, the stronger became his determination to overcome them; without this trait, he wouldn't have risen from a newsdealer boy to a successful businessman.

In the evening of the same day when the distressing news came, the estate owner and his paramour sat in the dining room waiting for dinner. Dubois mechanically bent and folded a napkin: half-and-half, again half-and-half... He always did such things when he was irritated. Suddenly the footman whose duties included serving at the table ran into the room out of breath.

"Monsieur, monsieur! The cook..."

"Don't say she's dead!" Dubois exclaimed.

"Not yet, monsieur... but she is very bad."

The old woman was in a really bad way: she was suffocating, her face had turned blue, and her body shuddered in spasms. On the floor lay a big spoon with morsels of food. Obviously, the cook had choked trying her own dish; Dubois, however, didn't understood it at once–at first he thought of poison. One of servants tried to help the cook while another ran for the doctor. But when Clavier arrived, everything was already over. The list of deaths grew longer.

This time Leblanc, apparently, was full of determination to arrest someone. He reviewed the incident very carefully; it became clear that at the moment of the cook's misfortune, only the footman and one of servants had no alibi. The inspector, however, didn't detain them and asked Dubois and the doctor to discuss the situation.

All three passed to Dubois's office, which previously had been the place of de Montreux's death; the businessman wasn't distressed at all by the aristocrat's demise.

"I am sure that we are dealing with a crime," Leblanc stated without preface. "More precisely, with a series of crimes."

"Are you implying that I'm killing my own servants?" Dubois arose.

"No, it is quite obvious that it is not you. In the last case, you simply couldn't have done it–if, of course, the whole house is not in collusion and doesn't protect you specially. But an arrangement between a murderer and his victims is absurd."

"As well as murders without a motive!"

"You see," the doctor cleared his throat, "purely theoretically you could have a reason... I'm not a specialist in mental disorders; here, in rural areas, people seldom go mad. But just recently I've read one article... Sometimes a man who has done a certain act subconsciously regrets it and tries to correct his deeds. Thus, he acts as a somnambulist, without being aware of his actions and without remembering them. So, as you were indirectly involved in the death of count de Montreux..."

"Nonsense," Dubois cut him off. "In your theory, I subconsciously try to execute his curse and lose my rest? But I don't feel any guilt, either conscious or subconscious. I see no reasons to stand on ceremony with these dried-up branches of the old aristocracy."

"Anyway, you have an alibi," the inspector interjected, "and we may not consider the exotic hypothesis of the doctor."

"Your hypothesis seems to me no less exotic," noticed Dubois, "you speak about murders, but, after all, these events are just accidents."

"It was not too difficult to arrange last three deaths," the inspector objected. "In order to cause a night heart attack of an old man, it's enough to frighten him badly. The same is applicable to the choked old woman. And it was possible to mix a drinkable potion which would agitate the horse into a frenzy.”

"Do you think one of the servants is behind all this?"

"No, not they. And not your... um... girlfriend. Yet Romans, investigating a crime, first of all asked a question: cui prodest–to whom is it favorable? You, obviously, have enemies, don't you?"

"As well as any businessman. But none of them would settle scores in such a Gothic novel style. Besides, if someone wants to destroy me, why would he kill my servants?"

"That's true, your business rivals are not suspects. These deaths seem more like revenge, and revenge with definite aims. It would seem that someone aspires to expel you from this house, simultaneously bringing down its price because of ill fame. For this purpose, he kills servants who previously served de Montreux's family and then betrayed them by serving you..."

"In other words, a de Montreux wants to buy back the family home cheaply? But the late count was the last in his line, no relatives remained. I found that out."

"In such affairs, there never can be full confidence. The relative could be distant and have another surname; it could be just a friend and, at lastly... even Armand count de Montreux himself."

"The dead man? You saw his body."

"Now I am not so sure that we saw the body of the count. You remember, the face was disfigured by the shot. Certainly, there is a question as to whose corpse was palmed off on us... but that's another matter. But look, how all the facts fit. The count knows the house better than anybody else, and he has keys to all the doors; he can easily get into any place on the estate. And, certainly, his emergence alone is enough to literally frighten to death the gardener and the cook."

"It's too romantic to be true," Dubois made a wry face.

"Because of the loss of his house, the count could have developed an idee fixe," noticed Clavier. "And then, quite probably, he would began to act exactly in such a way."

"Are you saying that a revenge-thirsting maniac is walking around my house? In that case, why does he limit himself to servants and not kill me?"

"And who told you that he wouldn't do that?" the inspector said with police directness. "Before killing you, he just wants to make you quake with fear, that's all."

"So what do you think I should do?"

"I would recommend that you leave... for some time. You see, here I can't guarantee your safety. In rural areas, there is not a large number of police... we can't assign a gendarme to each inhabitant of the house."

"In other words, you decline all responsibility?" Dubois sneered.

"No, certainly not. I will do my utmost... but after all, formally, we don't even have a legally defined crime. There is only a series of accidents–and a hypothesis which would seem even more fantastic to my superiors than to you."

"Don't bother, I understood. Well, I can take care of myself."

"But remember that the danger threatens not only you."

"If you cannot protect us, at least refrain from condescending to tell me what to do. Besides, as you say, these are only hypotheses in which I don't much believe. But if this unknown avenger, be it de Montreux or anybody else, intrudes in my house, I will shoot him."

"In any case, you should warn all inhabitants of the house about the danger."

"So that they all run away? Superstitious rumors are one thing and a real threat of murder is absolutely another one. No, they are frightened enough even without that."

"In that case, monsieur Dubois, I must warn them myself."

"Inspector, you have no formal grounds to consider these deaths criminal. Thus, you have no right to alarm my people, thus causing ..."

At this moment came a knock at the door. It was Leroi.

"I beg your pardon for interrupting you, monsieur," he said, "but the matter is that the servants... they are preparing to depart."

"What, all of them?" the businessman shouted angrily. "Try to dissuade them!"

"It's impossible, monsieur, I tried. They want to leave the estate immediately, before the night. So will you allow me to settle with them?"

"And what if not?"

"They say, monsieur, that they will leave now and will return for their money later."

"Damn! You see, inspector, your efforts aren't required any more. All right, Leroi, settle with these superstitious idiots and then go to the village and hire somebody for couple of days until new permanent servants can be found."

"Yes, monsieur. But I am afraid that nobody in the village will agree to work in this house, even for a threefold payment."

"I need servants, not your guesses! Go!"

"You see, monsieur Dubois," the inspector said when the majordomo left the room, "all circumstances favor your departure."

"Like hell! If someone wants to expel me from this house, he won't achieve it!" the businessman rose from his chair, letting the others know that conversation was ended.

Jeannette met him in tears.

"Jacques!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms around his neck. "Let's leave this damned place! Let's leave right now!"

"One of my enemies would like it very much. And that's why we remain here. Don't be afraid of anything. While you are with me, nothing may threaten you," for greater persuasiveness he showed Jeannette the loaded pistol, which probably frightened her even more.

It happened that not all the servants left the house: unexpectedly from somewhere Marie appeared. However, Dubois's satisfaction with this fact almost instantly disappeared: the maid's usual cheerfulness was gone, and she probably could only increase the despondency of her mistress now. Then Leroi returned–as he had expected, with nothing: no villager would agree to work in de Montreux's house or even approach it after sunset. For the night, Dubois ordered everyone to lock their doors, and he himself, contrary to his normal practice, remained in Jeannette's bedroom till morning.

That night in the forest the wolf howled again.



In the morning, having left Jeannette in the care of her maid and having strictly ordered the majordomo to keep watch over both of them, Dubois went to the village and bought several of the strongest padlocks and bolts; then, having employed a temporary worker for an absolutely unreasonable fee, he came back to the estate. Together with Leroi, they went all over house, replacing locks and nailing up doors. Dubois even tapped walls in search of secret passages–a week ago even a thought about something similar would have seemed to him absolute paranoia. Eventually the house began to resemble a fortress not only from outside, but also from within; the locked and boarded up doors gave it a completely dismal and uninhabited look. The worker received his payment and went away with obvious relief; his appearance said: "No locks will save you from de Montreux's curse!"

Whether it was caused by natural irritation because things were developing so unsuccessfully or the gloomy atmosphere of the house and the events which had happened in it, Dubois for the first time felt really uncomfortable in his house and all day stayed in Jeannette's company. He managed to brighten up and, perhaps even more importantly, to amuse his concubine so that she stopped asking to leave the house and behaved as though she believed that after the arrival of new servants, everything would go in a different way. At last Jeannette went to her bedroom. Dubois sat on a sofa, leaning back and clamping a cigar between his thick hairy fingers, when suddenly the silence of the house was pierced by a terrifying female cry. The owner of the ill-starred estate jumped up as if stung, pulled out a pistol from a table box, and rushed to a corridor.

Jeannette, mortally pale, lay motionless on the threshold of her bedroom. Having knelt down beside her, Dubois saw with relief that she had only fainted. Suddenly, at the other end of the corridor the scared majordomo appeared.

"What happened?" he shouted.

"She is alive," Dubois answered and only at this moment thought about the reason for her screaming and fainting. He glanced in the bedroom and felt growing cold inside him.

Marie, whose carefree temperament even the ominous events of the last few days couldn't trouble, hung under the room ceiling. The overturned chair lay on a floor. Having looked at the terrible face of the strangled girl, Dubois understood that death had already come and any attempts to aid her were useless.

"Damned bastard!" the businessman shouted. "Where are you hiding?! Come out–or are you afraid to meet me face to face?!"

"No, no, monsieur," said Leroi. He tried to speak calmly, but his voice quavered. "There is nobody here, except us. That's a suicide, no doubt, a suicide..."

Dubois turned to him. Having seen his face, the majordomo started back.

"Suicide?! Why the hell, in your learned opinion, should she have hanged herself?!"

"Who knows... girls at such an age... some amorous troubles..."

"Go for the doctor," Dubois restrained himself. "And if upon your return you don't find me alive, know that it won't be a suicide."

Soon after Leroi's departure, Jeannette came to her senses.

"Is it true that Marie is dead?" she asked. "It didn't seem real to me."

"Yes, unfortunately, it's true," Dubois answered.

"Poor Marie... Well, now we will leave here. Leave immediately."

"We will leave... " he absentmindedly responded, looking around like a badgered animal. The businessman who pulled off million-franc deals and managed the lives of many people, for the first time in many years was really frightened. All the previous deaths had reasonable explanations; but Marie's death was so absurd, irrational...

The doctor, however, demonstrated no special surprise–as well as the inspector with whom he, obviously, already shared his information.

"Poor Marie," Clavier echoed the words of Jeannette. "If only I had known that she would go there..."

"What are you trying to say?" Dubois impatiently exclaimed. "Is this a suicide?"

"Undoubtedly."

"But the motive?"

"Yesterday Marie asked me to examine her... She was pregnant."

Dubois suddenly felt idiotic desire to exclaim: "I had nothing to do with it!" Instead he addressed Leblanc:

"But, Inspector, if your hypothesis about the avenger is true, he could hang the maid, imitating suicide."

"I quite agree with the doctor," Leblanc answered, finishing inspecting the body. "You see, when a person is hanged against his will, either his hands are tied or he is previously made unconscious. Obviously, in both cases the victim can't grasp the rope. On the contrary, suicides usually reflexively do it at the last moment, which leaves on their hands the corresponding traces present in this case... Certainly, without a motive it wouldn't be absolute proof, but the doctor's information..."

Dubois pity for Marie disappeared instantly.

"She shouldn't have done it in my house!" he angrily exclaimed.

"I do not think that she specially wanted to cause you trouble," the doctor shook his head. "Possibly, it was a sudden impulsive decision. Probably, the oppressive atmosphere of the house was a factor...”

"Leave my house alone! 'The oppressive atmosphere,' 'the house of death'–all this is idiotic malarkey, and I will prove to all of you that it is possible to live a fine life here!"

As soon as the visitors left, Jeannette asked with anxiety:

"Jacques, you aren't going to remain here?"

"Certainly, we will remain."

"But you promised!"

"I thought that we were dealing with a devilishly capable and artful killer. But it appears that nobody killed Marie, so there is no danger."

"No danger?! Five deaths in two weeks!"

"It's just an extremely unpleasant coincidence. Well, not absolutely a coincidence... Each subsequent incident plays on the nerves of people, thereby increasing the probability of new tragedies..."

"You can argue as much as you want with a clever look on your face, but I won't remain here any longer."

"Jeannette, it is necessary to endure just a day more. And then new servant will arrive, and life will return to normal. We should not flee now; it is necessary to stop this growing fear..."

"I'm leaving, Jacques, I will leave immediately. If you don't want to go, I'm going alone."

Dubois lost his patience.

"You may go anywhere. I don't need hysterical women. If you leave now, everything will be over between us."

"Jacques, don't speak so... I want to be with you... but only not in this house. I am scared, Jacques... so scared..."

"You are under my protection!"

"There are things over which even you have no control..."

"Well, enough of this superstitious bullshit! I ask... I demand that you stay. No? Have you thought about what you are losing? Still no?"

He stepped closer to her and slapped her cheek. He had done it before, though very seldom, when it was necessary to correct her. Previously it had helped.

Jeannette turned away in tears.

"Farewell, monsieur Dubois," she said.

"Leroi! Leroi!" the enraged businessman cried. The alarmed majordomo arrived.

"Go to the village and hire somebody who will take the mademoiselle to the city. Right now."

"It's useless, monsieur. Now, at night, nobody will agree to render you services. Maybe, we'll wait till the morning?"

"I said now! If you can't hire anybody, you will drive her yourself! Enough, get out of my sight! Both of you!"

Dubois remained in the huge house alone. Black moonless night shrouded the estate, the gloomy forest, the road passing through the forest... The candle crackled and went out, leaving the owner of the house alone with darkness. Again from afar a wolf howl reached; this time, as it seemed to Dubois, not in anxiety but in triumph and at the same time a dreary threat sounded in it. He imagined how it would be for a lonely traveler to listen to this howl in the cold and unfriendly night, and that made him shudder.



The carriage rolled through the night forest. On the left and on the right, huge trunks of old trees, which probably remembered yet the first count de Montreux, towered in gloom; their long clumsy branches here and there intertwined over the road. The cold night breeze whispered in foliage and moved in bushes; suddenly somewhere an eagle owl dully screeched. Leroi, who handled the reins, involuntarily shivered. It seemed improbable that somewhere there was Paris decked by lights, that in cabarets and restaurants people were having fun, that it was the pragmatic nineteenth century in the outer world. Here, in the forest, everything was as if impregnated with the spirit of antiquity, the spirit of times gone long ago–or more likely, of non-time at all, of a stiffened and hardened eternity. Leroi, probably, would not have been surprised much if from the nearest turn a knight in armor or a medieval monk in a hooded cowl had appeared. He already regretted that he had agreed to bring his master's concubine to the city at night—or, as he suspected, the former concubine; if he had simply informed Dubois that nobody would undertake this task, then, probably, his master would have told Jeannette: "Reach Paris yourself as best you can." She, facing such a prospect, probably would have tried for a reconciliation–maybe the master expected exactly that? Anyway, it was too late already for such thought, unless Jeannette herself would ask to turn back...

At this moment, a wolf howl distinctly sounded from behind. Here, in the forest, it sounded much more ominous than in the house. Jeannette put her head out of the window.

"Faster, Leroi! Do you hear?"

"Nothing to worry about. In these parts usually people hunt wolves, not vice versa," he answered, whipping up the horses, however.

In a few minutes the howl sounded again, this time much closer. Leroi marveled; if it was not a hearing deception, the animal moved with tremendous speed. Then he decided that it was, most likely, another wolf. The horses began to show appreciable anxiety.

The wolf raised a howl a third time–very close, literally just behind a turn. "Faster, faster!" Jeannette shouted, but the horses didn't need further urging. Leroi felt that he couldn't cope with them. Spurred on by ancient horror, the horses galloped at full speed; the coach groaned and shook on its springs. A low leaning branch scratched the carriage top, like a hand trying to hold the escaping prey.

"What are you doing, we will crash!" Jeannette cried. At the next moment a spasm seized her throat: having looked back, she saw the predators.

Seven or eight large wolves chased the carriage; they seemed terribly huge to the frightened Jeannette. The biggest one ran ahead of the others; it was a magnificent beast with fur of a rare silvery shade. Its eyes shone red in the darkness, which is usual for animals of this species, but it seemed to Jeannette that in those eyes hellfire sparkled. The wolves ran absolutely silently, like ghosts, and the distance between them and their potential victims, despite the horses' mad run, decreased every minute. Leroi didn't try to manage the horses any longer; he just sat, grasping the reins and staring into the darkness with eyes wide open from fear.

The dull crash sounded, and the carriage, which had lost a wheel, jerkily fell sidewards. The door swung open, and Jeannette, who had no time to grab any support, fell out on the road. The crazed horses dragged the overturned carriage further.

When Jeannette came to her senses after falling, she saw the wolves had surrounded her in a semicircle. The leader wrinkled its nose in a snarl, baring its canines which dimly shone in the light of stars. Jeannette felt hair stand on her head; paralyzed by horror, she couldn't resist, couldn't shout–she only looked at the slowly approaching beast...



"I am sorry, monsieur Dubois," Inspector Leblanc said, "but you should participate in the identification. The body is very mutilated..."

"Yes," Dubois said, dully staring ahead, "yes, of course." After a a short pause, he asked: "And did Leroi escape?"

"It is hardly possible to call it escape," the inspector answered. "He was found near the wreckage of the coach. The wolves didn't touch him, but what he endured had a pernicious effect on him... He was sitting, absolutely gray-haired, stupidly staring at one point; in this condition he still stays now. The poor man lost his mind."

"It looks like all this doesn't much fit your hypothesis about an avenger," gloomily noted Dubois. "Would you say that the wolves were trained?"

"Yes, it would sound ridiculous... Wolves generally aren't tamable. Though, on the other hand, there are breeds of dogs very similar to wolves. And an attack of a wolf pack on a coach is so unusual at this time... They actually behaved more like dogs: bit the victim to death, but didn't gobble her up. Besides, the wheel–why did it suddenly fall off? It might be an accident... or the axle might have been weakened The examination doesn't allow me to say unequivocally now."

"You don't abandon your idea?" Dubois was surprised.

"I don't know, monsieur Dubois; I simply don't know. If this is a crime, then it is devilishly, improbably cunning and difficult to accomplish; otherwise, it is an improbable chain of coincidences. We have to choose between two improbabilities. Well, are you ready? The doctor waits for us."



When the uneasy formalities were finished, Clavier expressed a desire to talk to Dubois. The latter mechanically nodded.

For some time both kept silence.

"She was very valuable to you, wasn't she?" the doctor began at last.

"Yes... probably she was," the businessman answered, "though I never thought about it before."

"Now will you leave?"

"No!" Dubois gritted his teeth. "Now I especially won't leave under any circumstances! Nobody in the world will expel me from my house!”

"Excuse me, monsieur, but this has become a kind of obsession. Certainly, all that you had to suffer..."

"Spare me this nonsense, doctor! I am as clear-headed as always. The laws of probability are on my side. Coincidences can't proceed eternally—that means, I am not in danger. Or do you, like the inspector, see in all this a malicious intention?"

"Leblanc still considers that we deal with an ordinary criminal?"

"Not with anyone ordinary; however, he isn't sure about the possibilities. He theorizes that in the last tragedy dogs could have been used as murder weapons."

"As far as I can judge, they were wolves."

"Then why... why didn't they eat her?"

"Well, here a very simple explanation is possible. Wolves are very sensitive to smells; the smell of perfume could stave off their appetite. Excuse me for such details..."

"On the contrary, you calmed me. Now I precisely know that we deal only with coincidences."

"You see, monsieur Dubois... that's what I wanted to talk to you about. As well as Leblanc, I don't believe in too a large number of coincidences... but in this case I also doubt that an ordinary human being could arrange all this."

"Then who?" Dubois grinned. "The angered ghost of count de Montreux?"

"You are wrong to treat it so lightly."

"What?!" Dubois stared at the doctor in astonishment. "You don't really mean to say that you believe in such bullshit?! You, a man of science!"

"Yes, certainly, we live in the nineteenth century when it seems that in the temple of science only a few last bricks need to be laid... But it is a superficial view. I am afraid that what we built is only an entrance to the real temple. Factually, we still know almost nothing about fundamental things: life and death. It is considered nowadays that a human being is a machine: the heart is a motor, the stomach is a fire chamber, the arms and legs are levers, and so on. But then why can't we assemble this machine from separate parts? Why, having stopped, can't it be started again when what stopped it is eliminated?"

"Obviously, the parts instantly spoil and nothing more," Dubois answered with irritation.

"But why does it occur? Why are the complex and diverse chemical processes of life quickly and irreversibly replaced by the chemical processes of decomposition? Why does an injury to the brain turn an absolutely healthy organism into inert decaying protoplasm? The heart after all has its own nerve system; it doesn't need orders from the brain to work. Theoretically the body could live without the head as it lives without a foot or a hand; but it doesn't occur."

"I am sure that science will find answers to these questions."

"I am sure of it, too; but how can we know what these answers will be? Why not assume that there is a certain substance, call it soul or mind, which is connected to the body, but is capable of leaving it? And if this substance interacts with its own body, it can interact also with other objects of the material world."

"Really and truly, doctor, you disappoint me. Do you think that it is enough to say 'substance' instead of 'ghost' to turn medieval nonsense into a scientific hypothesis? No, doctor. In my life I haven't faced anything that couldn't be explained rationally.”

"Six deaths in a row, monsieur."

"Each of which has a reasonable explanation! Eventually, what do you want from me? To leave? Jeannette tried to leave and that killed her. Perhaps I should bring a church repentance? Should I sprinkle the house with holy water and put a garlic wreath on my neck? No, I did something better. I replaced locks and secured the doors and I have a weapon at my hand. If really there is someone behind all this, I will with great pleasure fire a bullet into this bastard."

"Whatever, monsieur, whatever; but I am still sure that here you are in danger."

"Bullshit, tomorrow new servants will arrive, and everything will go as it should."

"If I were you, at least I wouldn't spend tonight alone in the empty house."

"I am capable of protecting myself. If it is a ghost," Dubois grinned, "it can't cause me harm; and if it's a living man, I'll quickly make him a ghost."



By evening the weather worsened; the incoming autumn declared its rights. The cold wind tore wet leaves from trees and flung small raindrops against the windows. Dubois stayed late in his office with some papers; but business affairs didn't occupy his mind. Though he wouldn't admit it even to himself, fear was overtaking him. The thought that in this office the last count de Montreux committed suicide now disturbed the new owner of the manor; the understanding of his full loneliness in the empty and cold house oppressed him. It came to a point when, having caught movement out of the corner of his eye, he shuddered and grabbed for the gun and only in the next moment realized that he was frightened by his own shadow on a wall. Dubois swore. At the same time, an especially strong burst of wind blew; glasses shuddered, and somewhere in the house a shutter swung open with a bang. For several seconds Dubois sat motionless with his heart beating fast, listening attentively to the sounds of the night house, but he heard only wind howling in chimneys. Then he stood up and, with a pistol in one hand and a lamp in another, went to check the suspicious window.

He didn't find anything unusual there; obviously, the shutter had indeed been opened by the wind. Dubois closed it again and, without returning to the office, went to his bedroom. There he carefully locked the door with two turns of a key, engaged a latch, examined the window, put two loaded pistols on a little bedside cabinet and only after all that went to bed, having left the oil lamp lit. Dubois couldn't fall asleep for a long time, listening to the whining of the wind and rain noise beyond the window, but, at last, a heavy drowsiness possessed him...

About midnight the businessman suddenly opened his eyes as from a kick. The storm had ended; it was astonishingly quiet in the house. And in this silence, the remote creak of floor boards suddenly was heard. Dubois tried to convince himself that there was nothing unusual: in an old house something always squeaks and crackles. However, the sounds were too rhythmical and, seemingly, their source approached. In horror Dubois realized that he was hearing confident steps; someone strode through the house. Here creaked, opening, an office door; then it slammed–the stranger left there. Now the steps moved to the bedroom.

Dubois understood that it was necessary to take a pistol, but he could not move and lay in full helplessness. Steps stopped on the other side of the door. The new lock snapped, opening. Then the latch moved by itself. Dubois felt hair move on his head. The door silently opened. Behind it, there was nobody.

But the steps came nearer to the bed and stopped. Dubois smelled the disgusting stench of a decaying corpse. A cold whiff of air touched his face and at the next instant slippery ice-cold fingers seized the businessman's neck. Dubois wanted to cry out, but a spasm blocked his throat. He desperately, but unsuccessfully, tried to move his hands; his heart beat furiously, he suffocated...

Dubois was awakened by his own shout. Still in the power of his nightmare, he jumped up on the bed, swinging hands, and knocked the lamp down from the bedside cabinet. The lamp fell and broke; burning kerosene spread on the floor, and tongues of flame licked the window curtain and the bed sheet which hung to the floor. Dubois, at last, awoke completely. In three jumps he crossed the bedroom and, having pushed the latch aside, jerked the door handle. But the door, of course, didn't open, as the lock was locked on two turns and the key lay on the bedside cabinet. Having realized this fact, Dubois helplessly turned back: the cabinet was already on fire. For some seconds the businessman helplessly looked around in search of any object which could help him, but then he understood that he had to snatch the key out of the flames barehanded. When he, at last, rushed to the cabinet, the fire reached the pistols lying there. A shot banged; a strong and hot kick in the breast threw Dubois back onto the locked door, and he slowly slipped to the floor. The flame with a cheerful crackle was devouring the room furniture.



"Yesterday in the suburb of L. there was a strong fire, as a result of which the family estate of counts de Montreux completely burned out. The last owner, the Parisian businessman Jacques Dubois, was the only victim of the fire. It is supposed that he died because of his own imprudence."