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.