“That’s a good thing!” said Ralph. “Well, the train starts. Two hours pass. It stops at La Roche station. It starts again. The moment has come. The three men from car number four, that is to say Jodot and the brothers Loubeaux come out of their dark compartment. They are masked, dressed in gray blouses, and wear caps. They slip into car number five. At once they see in the first compartment, two sleeping figures, a man and a lady with fair hair. Jodot and one of the brothers fall upon them while the other brother keeps watch. The Baron is knocked on the head and bound. The Englishwoman defends herself. Jodot grips her by the throat and only then learns the mistake they have made: it is not Aurelie, but another woman with fair hair. They leave the Baron bound and the girl dying and go out of the corridor to the last compartment, where William and Aurelie really are. But here everything changes. William has heard a noise. He is on his guard. He has his revolver and brings the business to an end with a couple of shots. The two brothers fall, and Jodot flies.
“We are in full agreement, aren’t we, Marescal? Your mistake, my mistake at the beginning, the mistake [[235]]of the magistrates, everybody’s mistake is to have judged the facts in accordance with their appearance and in accordance with this rule, which is quite reasonable: when there is a murder, the dead are the victims and the people who fly the murderers. One never thought that the exact opposite might happen, that the assailants might be killed and the assailed, safe and sound, might take to flight. And how should William not have thought of flight on the instant? If William waits, William is done for. William the burglar cannot allow justice to meddle in his affairs. The smallest enquiry and the underside of his equivocal existence will rise into the full light of day. Was he going to resign himself to that? It would be too foolish. When the train is slowing down the remedy is at hand. He does not hesitate; he hustles his companion and shows her the scandal that the business will set going—a scandal for her and a scandal for Bregeac. Helpless, in an immense confusion of mind, terrified by what she has seen and the presence of these two corpses, she does as he bids her. William dresses her in the blood-stained blouse and mask and cap of the younger Loubeaux. He dresses himself in the disguise of the elder Loubeaux, carries away their suit-cases to leave no trace behind him. They hurry down the corridor, upset the conductor, and jump from the train.
“An hour later, after a terrible flight through the [[236]]wood, Aurelie was arrested, imprisoned, found herself in the hands of her implacable enemy, Marescal, and was lost.
“But for a coup de théâtre. I enter the scene!”
Nothing, neither the gravity of the circumstances, nor the dolorous attitude of the young girl who is weeping at the memory of that accursed night—nothing could have prevented Ralph from playing the part of an actor who enters on the scene.
He rose, went to the door, and came back, with the magnificent air of an actor whose entry must produce an overwhelming effect.
“Then I enter on the scene,” he repeated, smiling with an air of satisfaction. “It was time. I am sure, Marescal, that you also are pleased to see, in the midst of these rogues and imbeciles, an honest man who at once takes up the right attitude, without knowing anything, and simply because Mademoiselle has beautiful green eyes, comes forward as the champion of persecuted innocence. Here at last is a firm will, a penetrating insight, a helping hand, a generous heart—Baron de Limézy! As soon as he arrives, things begin to clear up. The facts line up, like good children, in their true and proper order; and the drama ends in laughter and good temper.”
He walked a few steps up and down the room, and bent over the weeping girl. [[237]]
“Why do you go on crying, Mademoiselle, now that this nightmare is at an end, and even Marescal himself bows before an innocence he clearly sees? Do not weep, Mademoiselle. Always I enter on the scene at the decisive moment. It’s a habit of mine, and I never miss my entry. You saw it yourself that horrible night: Marescal shut you up; I set you free. Two days later, at Nice, it was Jodot. I rescue you. At Monte Carlo, at Sainte-Marie, it is Marescal again. I rescue you. And was I not here just now? Then what are you afraid of? All is over, and we can go quietly away before the big policemen arrive and the Horse Marines surround the house. Isn’t that so, Rudolph? You don’t put any obstacle in the way, and Mademoiselle is free? Isn’t it a fact that you’re ravished by this dénouement which satisfies your sense of justice and your genial soul? You are coming, Mademoiselle?”