CHAPTER VIII.THE BLACK BROTHERS.
Paris at night, three days later.
Frank Merriwell was strolling along the Avenue de l’Opera, which was lighted as brightly as a ballroom. On either hand were rows and clusters of tables, where men and women were sitting in the open air, sipping their cool drinks and chatting animatedly. It was like walking the floor of a long dining-room. This, Frank told himself, was one of the pleasures of Paris at night. Nowhere else in the world could such a spectacle be seen. The promenaders of the boulevards were patrolling the avenue. They were men whose main ambition in life seemed to be to acquire reputations asboulevardiers, reputations easily obtained by persistently patrolling certain streets at certain hours day after day, week after week, month after month.
About it all there was something strictly and solely Parisian. In Paris alone could one so quickly imbibe the feeling of utter freedom and so quickly fling aside all sensation of restraint and unfamiliarity. At least, so thought Frank just then, as he swung along the avenue, light-hearted, buoyant, careless. To Merry it seemed that he had not a care in the world. It seemed that he would never again have a care.
The appearance of the women sitting out of doors under the trees, with their heads bare, made the city so homelike and friendly that it was as if everybody knew everybody else.
Frank came to the Boulevard des Capucines and paused a moment in front of the Café de la Paix. Now at his back were the cafés, blazing with electric lights, blushing in gorgeous upholstery, glittering with magnificent mirrors, and thronged by well-dressed men and women. Across the square the Grand Opera-House rose, beautiful, artistic, majestic.
“I will sit down a few moments,” thought Merry, as he started toward the table.
Just then a man stumbled and fell against him quite heavily. His first thought was that the man must be intoxicated, but he remembered he was in Paris, and, turning quickly, he saw a refined-looking gentleman, past middle age, with gray mustache and imperial, pressing his hand to his heart, while there was a look of distress on his pale face.
Quick as thought, Frank grasped the man gently and firmly, politely saying:
“Permit me, monsieur. Can I be of assistance to you?”
The stranger gasped as he attempted to reply, and the only word Merry understood was “Rest.” The young American assisted the stranger to a seat by the table, and then bent over him solicitously, again asking how he could be of assistance.
“You have done all you can, thank you, my friend,” murmured the gentleman, as his unsteady hand placed his jewel-decorated cane on the table. “I was seized by a pain in my heart, but it is passing now. You were about to sit down here. Do not let me prevent.”
Frank took a chair at the table, and the man looked at him searchingly.
“If the curiosity is pardonable, may I ask if you are English?” inquired the stranger, taking a handkerchief from his pocket and using it to absorb a tiny drop of blood that had appeared on his wrist.
“I am an American, monsieur.”
The man showed fresh interest.
“An American!” he exclaimed, his face still remaining pale. “I might have guessed it! I have been in America. Americans love justice and liberty.”
“You have hurt yourself, monsieur?” said Frank, as the man continued to press the handkerchief to his wrist.
“It is nothing—a slight scratch. But I received it in a peculiar manner a few moments ago. A woman spoke to me. I attempted to pass on, and she became angry, and struck at me with a hatpin. She barely touched my wrist here—enough to draw blood.”
“I had no idea women were so vicious in Paris—at this early hour of the night.”
“It’s seldom they are. In London it would not be strange. This woman spoke French imperfectly. I do not think she was French. At least, I hope not.”
“She seemed Spanish in her readiness to strike with a weapon,” said Frank. “But you are very pale, monsieur, I fear you are harmed in some other manner.”
“Your solicitation speaks well for you, and is further proof that you are American, not English. An Englishman would not take such interest in a stranger.”
“Perhaps it is a proof of my freshness,” smiled Merry.
“Freshness? What do you mean by that?”
“In English that is slang. It means that a person is too forward, too presuming, lacking in reserve and discretion.”
“The American is impulsive, but to me that is his charm. Having been in America, I know the Americans who come to France do not fairly represent the people of the country.”
Frank glowed.
“I am glad to hear you say that, monsieur!” he cried. “In England, America is judged by the Americans who come to London, much to the misfortune of my native land. The newly rich, the uncultured, the bores and the snobs of America rush to England and France as soon as possible, and they are taken to be representative Americans.”
“I know this is true, and I am glad to meet in France a representative American—outside the Latin Quarter. Monsieur, my card.”
Frank accepted the white bit of cardboard, on which was engraved:
“M. Edmond Laforce.”
“The Duke of Benoit du Sault!” exclaimed Merry, in surprise, looking up.
“Yes, monsieur,” bowed the Frenchman, lifting his eyebrows. “But how is it you know that?”
“Why, you know all America takes a great interest in the Dreyfus case, with which you have been concerned, or, at least, with which newspaper reports have connected you.”
The Duke of Benoit du Sault frowned a little.
“The newspapers! the newspapers!” he exclaimed. “They have given me the publicity I shunned. I have sought to do quietly what I could for that unfortunate man on——Pardon me, monsieur; what do you think of Dreyfus?”
“I think as think nine Americans out of ten, if not ninety-nine out of a hundred.”
“And that is—what?”
“That Dreyfus is innocent!”
The face of the duke seemed to clear, although it remained strangely pale, while there seemed to be something of a hunted look in his piercing eyes.
“I am glad to hear you say that,” he spoke in a low tone. “I have known that America sympathized with him.”
“My card, monsieur.”
Frank took his card from a morocco case and passed it across the table, adding:
“A friendly exchange, that may serve as an introduction, if you care to have it so.”
“Of course I care to have it so, Monsieur Merriwell,” said the duke, immediately extending his hand, which Frank accepted.
The young American noticed that the hand of the man was cold as ice, and it trembled the least bit in his grasp.
“I am sure, monsieur, that you are not feeling well,” he said.
“I am feeling strangely,” admitted the Frenchman, with a shrug of his shoulders. “I do not understand what it is, unless——”
He shivered again, glancing around with that hunted look. Then he tried to force a laugh, saying:
“It cannot be so. For all of the sign, I will not believe my time has come. I have a work to do, a great work—for the honor of France!”
Frank had read in the newspapers—Frank’s trip occurred some years ago—how the Duke of Benoit du Sault had taken up the work for Dreyfus just where Monsieur Zola had been forced to abandon it, and how by doing so he had aroused an army of rabid and howling enemies about his ears. To escape imprisonment, Zola, the great novelist, had fled from France, and it was more than hinted that the Duke of Benoit du Sault might have to do likewise.
Frank was confident of the innocence of Dreyfus, the unfortunate Jew, who had once been an officer in the French Army, but had been accused of betraying the army’s secrets to rival powers, had been publicly disgraced and condemned to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island, a barren bit of rock and sand, far from France, on the burning bosom of a torrid sea.
Merry had read with great interest about the case, and, being a lover of justice, it was but natural that his soul should be stirred when he thought how Dreyfus had been convicted and condemned on evidence of which he knew absolutely nothing. The trial had been conducted in secret, and the public at large, like the condemned man, knew nothing of the proofs which established Dreyfus’ guilt.
The story of Madame Dreyfus’ devotion, and her unceasing efforts in behalf of her husband had touched Merry. He read how she had appealed to power after power, but all her appeals had seemed in vain till Monsieur Zola had cast himself into the arena, like a gladiator, and taken up the battle. But even Zola, great novelist and political factor as he was, was unable to stand against the army, and in France “the army can do no wrong,” so it was claimed that Dreyfus had been justly judged, and all who sought to show otherwise were enemies of France. The agitation aroused a terrible sentiment against the Jews, and there were repeated riots in the courts and on the streets. Zola and his friends contended against public sentiment and prejudice, and the whole affair which followed was a travesty of justice.
Even though the daring novelist was forced to flee from France to escape imprisonment, the agitation accomplished something. The one man who had done more than all others to convict Dreyfus was likewise forced to leave the country. In England he confessed that he, under instructions of others, had forged the document which had mainly served to convict the Jew. However, this man Esterhazy had told so many stories about the case that it was easy now to claim that this was but another lie, and, strangely enough, in a short time, he retracted the statement.
When the chief of police was forced to confess that he had forged certain documents which seemed to establish the guilt of the prisoner of Devil’s Island, there was a terrible commotion in Paris. The chief of police committed suicide without delay, or was murdered. The friends of Dreyfus made another mighty effort to have him brought back to France and given a fair trial. For a time it looked as if they must succeed, but all the power of the army was brought against them, and effort after effort was frustrated. One after another those officers who had been concerned in the conviction of Dreyfus resigned; but their places were filled by men who expressed themselves as fully confident that the Jew had been justly judged. The reversal of the verdict would mean the disgrace of men high in power, who had been instrumental in certain ways in bringing about the conviction, and so an innocent man was doomed to languish out his life in an iron cage on the burning rock of Devil’s Island, afar in the brassy bosom of a sun-scorched sea.
There were Frenchmen who believed Dreyfus innocent and who loved justice enough to desire his innocence proven, even though it rent the republic in twain. Edmond Laforce, the Duke of Benoit du Sault, was one of these. He placed his wealth and his life at the disposal of the friends of Dreyfus, and he set about devoting himself to the mighty task of forcing France to bring the prisoner back and give him a fair trial. The duke had tried to do his work quietly, but the newspapers had found out about him, and Frank Merriwell had read of him. Thus it came about that Merry knew the man’s title the moment he read his name on the card.
“You have my sympathy, sir,” assured Frank. “To me it does not seem possible that fate will permit poor Dreyfus to die on that desolate island without being brought back and having a fair trial.”
“The ways of God may not be measured by man,” said the duke solemnly; “but, like you, I believe that Dreyfus must be brought back, no matter what may come of it. They say to show him innocent means a revolution in France—means that the streets of Paris must again run with blood. Let it come! Better that than to have him die in Devil’s Island and afterward to have his innocence established. If he is truly guilty, it will be established beyond a doubt by another trial. That will end it forever. If he is innocent, it will mean the everlasting disgrace of France to have him die on that island!”
For a single moment a flush came into the duke’s cheeks, faint, indeed, but still perceptible. It faded quickly, and then, of a sudden, he pressed his hand to his heart once more, uttering a smothered cry of pain.
Frank leaned across the table in instant solicitation, a strange feeling of dread assailing him.
“What is it, monsieur?” he asked.
“The pain——”
“Again?”
“Yes.”
“Shall I order something?”
“A little brandy, please.”
Frank gave the order quickly, and the brandy was brought at once by a waiter. With trembling hand the duke lifted the glass and sipped the liquor.
“Are you subject to such attacks?” asked Merry.
The gentleman shook his head.
“No,” he asserted, “never before a few moments ago have I felt one. I do not understand it.”
He stopped speaking, his eyes fastened on the slight scratch on his wrist, which he had received from the hatpin in the hands of the vicious woman who had accosted him. He trembled as he looked.
“Strange!” he murmured, as if speaking to himself. “The pain seems to shoot from that scratch to my heart. Can it be——No, no! I will not believe it! The sign was given to frighten me. This is nothing. It will pass away.”
Despite his attempt to assure himself, however, it became plain that a great terror had seized upon him. He fought against it, trying to throw it off.
Frank noticed this agitation, and he observed that the duke again looked round in a hunted manner. No one seemed paying any attention to them. The duke’s hand fell from his heart to the table, and he leaned toward Merry. There was a peculiar gleam in his eyes.
“I have made enemies by the stand I have taken,” he said. “It has proved fatal for more than one man who espoused the cause of Dreyfus.”
“It has proved fatal?” questioned the young American. “What do you mean?”
“What I have said. More than one has given up his life because he dared proclaim the innocence of Dreyfus and work to establish it.”
“I have not heard of such cases.”
“Of course not. Why should you? The Black Brothers do their work in silence.”
“Who are the Black Brothers?”
“A band of men sworn to keep Dreyfus on Devil’s Island at any cost.”
“Do you mean to tell me there is such an organization of men in France?” gasped Frank, in horror.
“There is.”
“It does not seem possible!”
“There are said to be seven of the Black Brothers,” said the duke, speaking in guarded tones. “They are seven of the most desperate creatures in all France, and they are the hired assassins of the enemies of Dreyfus. They are paid to destroy such friends of the condemned man as may seem dangerous, and they are guaranteed protection by the men who employ them.”
“Horrible!” exclaimed Merry. “It’s like a grisly conception of some romancist. But I think the law would be able to reach the murderers.”
“Not yet, for as yet there is no proof that they have committed murder.”
“The victims——”
“Have died suddenly and strangely, one and all, and yet no man knows the cause of their death.”
“How is that?”
“Each one has been warned to leave France within ten days. One alone has heeded the warning. The others are dead.”
“They were murdered?”
“Of that there can be no doubt, yet on none of them was found a mark to tell how they died. It seemed that heart trouble cut short their lives.”
Frank started a bit, thinking how strangely the duke had been seized by pains in his heart. The Frenchman seemed to read the thoughts of his companion, and his face appeared to turn yet a shade paler than it had been.
“I have fancied that I might be able to detect the manner in which the Black Brothers do their work,” he said; “but now I fear I shall fail. The pains at my heart are terrible symptoms, and I fear I am to be the next victim.”
“Oh, no! That cannot be!”
“I have been given the sign.”
“What sign?”
“The sign of the Black Brothers! the sign of death!”
“When?”
“This is the tenth day since I received it!” whispered the duke.