“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.