Do
let us hear it. But take some wine first." The story he told was curious. "It happened," said Carmaignac, "as well as I recollect, before either
of the other cases. A French gentleman--I wish I could remember his
name--the son of a merchant, came to this inn (the Dragon Volant),
and was put by the landlord into the same room of which we have been
speaking. _Your_ apartment, Monsieur. He was by no means young--past
forty--and very far from good-looking. The people here said that he was
the ugliest man, and the most good-natured, that ever lived. He played
on the fiddle, sang, and wrote poetry. His habits were odd and desultory. He would sometimes sit all day in his room writing, singing, and
fiddling, and go out at night for a walk. An eccentric man! He was
by no means a millionaire, but he had a _modicum bonum_, you
understand--a trifle more than half a million of francs. He consulted
his stockbroker about investing this money in foreign stocks, and drew
the entire sum from his banker. You now have the situation of affairs
when the catastrophe occurred." "Pray fill your glass," I said. "Dutch courage, Monsieur, to face the catastrophe!" said Whistlewick,
filling his own. "Now, that was the last that ever was heard of his money," resumed
Carmaignac. "You shall hear about himself. The night after this
financial operation he was seized with a poetic frenzy: he sent for the
then landlord of this house, and told him that he long meditated an
epic, and meant to commence that night, and that he was on no account to
be disturbed until nine o'clock in the morning. He had two pairs of wax
candles, a little cold supper on a side-table, his desk open, paper
enough upon it to contain the entire Henriade, and a proportionate store
of pens and ink. "Seated at this desk he was seen by the waiter who brought him a cup of
coffee at nine o'clock, at which time the intruder said he was writing
fast enough to set fire to the paper--that was his phrase; he did not
look up, he appeared too much engrossed. But when the waiter came back,
half an hour afterwards, the door was locked; and the poet, from within,
answered that he must not be disturbed. "Away went the _garçon_, and next morning at nine o'clock knocked
at his door and, receiving no answer, looked through the key-hole; the
lights were still burning, the window-shutters were closed as he had
left them; he renewed his knocking, knocked louder, no answer came. He
reported this continued and alarming silence to the innkeeper, who,
finding that his guest had not left his key in the lock, succeeded in
finding another that opened it. The candles were just giving up the
ghost in their sockets, but there was light enough to ascertain that the
tenant of the room was gone! The bed had not been disturbed; the
window-shutter was barred. He must have let himself out, and, locking
the door on the outside, put the key in his pocket, and so made his way
out of the house. Here, however, was another difficulty: the Dragon
Volant shut its doors and made all fast at twelve o'clock; after that
hour no one could leave the house, except by obtaining the key and
letting himself out, and of necessity leaving the door unsecured, or
else by collusion and aid of some person in the house. "Now it happened that, some time after the doors were secured, at
half-past twelve, a servant who had not been apprised of his order to be
left undisturbed, seeing a light shine through the key-hole, knocked at
the door to inquire whether the poet wanted anything. He was very little
obliged to his disturber, and dismissed him with a renewed charge that
he was not to be interrupted again during the night. This incident
established the fact that he was in the house after the doors had been
locked and barred. The inn-keeper himself kept the keys, and swore that
he found them hung on the wall above his head, in his bed, in their
usual place, in the morning; and that nobody could have taken them away
without awakening him. That was all we could discover. The Count de St.
Alyre, to whom this house belongs, was very active and very much
chagrined. But nothing was discovered." "And nothing heard since of the epic poet?" I asked. "Nothing--not the slightest clue--he never turned up again. I suppose he
is dead; if he is not, he must have got into some devilish bad scrape,
of which we have heard nothing, that compelled him to abscond with all
the secrecy and expedition in his power. All that we know for certain is
that, having occupied the room in which you sleep, he vanished, nobody
ever knew how, and never was heard of since." "You have now mentioned three cases," I said, "and all from the same
room." "Three. Yes, all equally unintelligible. When men are murdered, the
great and immediate difficulty the assassins encounter is how to conceal
the body. It is very hard to believe that three persons should have been
consecutively murdered in the same room, and their bodies so effectually
disposed of that no trace of them was ever discovered." From this we passed to other topics, and the grave Monsieur Carmaignac
amused us with a perfectly prodigious collection of scandalous anecdote,
which his opportunities in the police department had enabled him to
accumulate. My guests happily had engagements in Paris, and left me about ten. I went up to my room, and looked out upon the grounds of the Château de
la Carque. The moonlight was broken by clouds, and the view of the park
in this desultory light acquired a melancholy and fantastic character. The strange anecdotes recounted of the room in which I stood by Monsieur
Carmaignac returned vaguely upon my mind, drowning in sudden shadows the
gaiety of the more frivolous stories with which he had followed them. I
looked round me on the room that lay in ominous gloom, with an almost
disagreeable sensation. I took my pistols now with an undefined
apprehension that they might be really needed before my return tonight. This feeling, be it understood, in no wise chilled my ardor. Never had
my enthusiasm mounted higher. My adventure absorbed and carried me away;
but it added a strange and stern excitement to the expedition. I loitered for a time in my room. I had ascertained the exact point at
which the little churchyard lay. It was about a mile away. I did not
wish to reach it earlier than necessary. I stole quietly out and sauntered along the road to my left, and thence
entered a narrower track, still to my left, which, skirting the park
wall and describing a circuitous route all the way, under grand old
trees, passes the ancient cemetery. That cemetery is embowered in trees
and occupies little more than half an acre of ground to the left of the
road, interposing between it and the park of the Château de la Carque. Here, at this haunted spot, I paused and listened. The place was utterly
silent.