CHAPTER XVIII. THE CHATEAU DE PRE-BONY
THE exclamation of the crowd proved to me that, at the sight of the great old man, who was known to all by his portraits and by the posters exhibited at the doors of the Yard, the same thought had instantaneously struck us all. We understood from the first. After the series of criminal pictures, we knew the meaning of Noel Dorgeroux's appearance on the screen and knew the inexorable climax of the story which we were being told. There had been six victims. My uncle would be the seventh. We were going to witness his death and to see the face of the murderer.
All this was planned with the most disconcerting skill and with a logic whose implacable rigour wrung our very souls. We were as though imprisoned in a horribly painful track which we were bound to follow to the end, notwithstanding the unspeakable violence of our sensations. I sometimes ask myself, in all sincerity, whether the series of miraculous visions could have been continued much longer, so far did the nervous tension which they demanded exceed our human strength.
A succession of pictures showed us several episodes of which the first dated back to a period when Noel Dorgeroux certainly had not discovered the great secret, for his son was still alive. It was the time of the war. Dominique, in uniform, was embracing the old fellow, who was weeping and trying to hold him back; and, when Dominique went, Noel Dorgeroux watched him go with all the distress of a father who is not to see his son again.
Next we have him again, once more in the Yard, which is encumbered with its sheds and workshops, as it used to be. Berangere, quite a child, is running to and fro. She is thirteen or fourteen at most.
We now follow their existence in pictures which tell us with what hourly attention my uncle Dorgeroux's labours were watched from up yonder. He became old and bent. The little one grew up, which did not deter her from playing and running about.
On the day when we are to see her as I had found her in the previous summer, we see at the same time Noel Dorgeroux standing on a ladder and daubing the wall with a long brush which he keeps dipping into a can. He steps back and looks with a questioning gaze at the wall where the screen is marked out. There is nothing. Nevertheless something vague and confused must already have throbbed in the heart of the substance, because he seems to be waiting and seeking....
A click; and everything is changed. The amphitheatre arises, unfinished in parts, as it was on the Sunday in March when I discovered my uncle's dead body. The new wall is there, surrounded by its canopy. My uncle has opened the recess contained in the basement and is arranging his carboys.
But, now, beyond the amphitheatre, which grows smaller for an instant, we see the trees in the woods and the undulations of the adjoining meadow; and a man comes up on that side and moves towards the path which skirts the fence. I for my part recognize his figure. It is the man with whom I was to struggle, half an hour later, in the wood through which he had just come. It is the murderer. He is wrapped in a rain-coat whose upturned collar touches the lowered brim of his hat. He walks uneasily. He goes up to the lamp-post, looks around him, climbs up slowly and makes his way into the Yard. He follows the road which I myself took that day after him and thrusts forward his head as I did.
Noel Dorgeroux is standing before the screen. He has closed the recess and jotted down some notes in a book. The victim suspects nothing.
Then the man throws off his wrap and his hat. He turns his face in our direction. It is Massignac.
The crowd was so much expecting to find that it was he that there was no demonstration of surprise. Besides, the pictures on this day were of a nature that left no room for alien thoughts or impressions. The consequences which might ensue from the public proof of Massignac's guilt were not apparent to us. We were not living through the minutes which were elapsing in the past but through those which were elapsing in the present; and until the last moment we thought only of knowing whether Noel Dorgeroux, whom we knew to be dead, was going to be murdered.
The scene did not last long. In reality my uncle was not conscious for a second of the danger that threatened him; and, contrary to what was elicited at the enquiry, there was no trace of that struggle of which the signs appeared to have been discovered. This struggle occurred afterwards, when my uncle had been struck down and was lying on the ground, motionless. It took place between a murderer seized with insensate fury and the corpse which he seemed bent upon killing anew.