The Blue Peril Read online

  LA LIBRE PAROLE

  (Leading article of March 9, final paragraph.)

  So, gentlemen, do you have faith in the words of the German commandant when he maintains that when his destroyer was damaged “he was 35 miles north of the Bretagne”? Do you not raise an eyebrow when he admits that “the collision nevertheless occurred a few seconds after the steamship’s”? Does it not tell you anything when he declares that “when taking part in nocturnal maneuvers, it is necessary to navigate with all lights out”? When he cries—like the captain of the Bretagne—“I saw nothing!” do you believe him? In that case, if you please, is there some evil phantom vessel present everywhere at the same time? Or did the two ships bump into one another despite a distance of 70 kilometers? I read in the official Cologne Gazette: “If we maintain silence on this matter, it is to avoid people in France drawing a connection between the two collisions.” Two collisions! Allow me to smile—sadly.

  II. The Haunted Countryside

  That incident had been settled for more than two months, and “the Bretagne affair” had been forgotten, when Monsieur Le Tellier’s attention was alerted by a news item in the Lyon Républicain.

  Monsieur Le Tellier received that provincial periodical in Paris because he was greatly interested in the Ain region, particularly Bugey, which is Madame Le Tellier’s native land. The latter’s mother, Madame Arquedouve, owns the Château de Mirastel there, where the astronomer and his family spend vacations, and Madame Le Tellier’s older sister, Madame Monbardeau, lives all the year round in the village of Artemare, near Mirastel, where her husband has a medical practice.

  It was, therefore, with a perfectly natural interest that Monsieur Le Tellier read the following lines in the issue of April 17.

  (Item 8)

  STRANGE DEPREDATIONS IN THE

  DÉPARTEMENT DE L’AIN

  Regrettable events have occurred in the Ain. Criminals, animated by stupid motives of pillage and degradation, commit misdeeds there on a daily basis, and not one of them, unfortunately, has been apprehended thus far. It was in Seyssel4 that it all began.

  On the night of April 14 and 15, a number of garden tools and agricultural implements, which had been left outdoors, were stolen. The first Seysselians who perceived this set off for the Mairie in order to lodge a complaint. On arriving at the town hall, they saw that the hands of the large clock had, absurdly, been removed during the night. A lantern hanging from a bracket had similarly disappeared. Popular opinion incriminated certain inhabitants who had been manifestly drunk the previous evening, but all of them, having given an account of their whereabouts, were exonerated. The court was advised.

  The day of April 15 passed without incident. On returning to their homes at midday and in the evening, the Seysselians found no trace of thefts or damage. They went to bed without any anxiety. The following day, however, they observed further depredations even less justified and even less reasonable than the preceding ones. A flag fixed to the gable of a new building had been stolen; the yellow-painted zinc sphere that served as a sign for the Boule d’Or inn was no longer hanging from its iron pole; a quantity of tree-branches had been cut in the orchards; a boundary-stone at the corner of the main square was no longer there; blocks of flint had quite their heap for an unknown destination; and finally, the grocer’s cat, which had been roaming the rooftops for some time, could not be found.

  The Seysselians decided to keep watch on the following night, but it was futile. Nothing happened.

  The universal opinion is that it is a matter of a gang of practical jokers, and that the actions are those of the village’s coarse tricksters.

  Such are the news items that reached us 24 hours ago, which we refused to insert before being convinced of their exactitude. Today that exactitude is indubitable, and we have it from a reliable source—which, in truth, it is not superfluous to mention—that on the night when the Seysselians mounted guard fruitlessly, it was the next village, Corbonod, which received a visit from the thieves. There, they attacked and robbed kitchen gardens in particular. And the following night, the wretched hooligans committed their acts of vandalism in the hamlet of Charbonnière, not far from Seyssel. A goat-kid from that locality, which escaped, has not been seen again.

  The gendarmerie is working on the case. There are several suspects. We await further details and will keep our readers informed. But this is an exploit of thieves worthy of the region—for let us not forget that the ridge of the hills overlooks the Val de Fier, which displays to travelers the house of…guess who? Mandrin.5

  These lines intrigued Monsieur Le Tellier, perhaps even more than was reasonable. On reflection, though, the thought struck him that the mystery probably resided primarily in the way the information was presented, and that only the lack of details produced the appearance.

  As he had to write to his brother-in-law, Monbardeau, the man, avid for enlightenment, took advantage of the opportunity to ask him for some clarifications with regard to the above. This is his letter; I have reproduced it in full because it deals with events and things closely linked to our story.

  (Item 9)

  To Dr. C. Monbardeau,

  Artemare (Ain)

  Paris, 202 Boulevard Saint-Germain.

  April 18, 1912,

  My dear Calixte,

  Great news! We shall arrive at Mirastel on the evening of April 26—my wife, my daughter, my son, my secretary and I. I am notifying the worthy Madame Arquedouve by the same post. You have read “my son” correctly, Maxime is coming with us; the Prince of Monaco has given him a month’s leave between two oceanographic cruises.6

  Now you are prodigiously bewildered! You’re wondering why we’re leaving Paris so early this year. Let’s say…well, let’s just say that I’m exhausted by the inauguration of the large equatorial. That will be the official pretext.

  Oh, my poor Calixte, that equatorial! You wouldn’t recognize the Observatory. One might think that Perrault’s Observatory is now Soufflot’s Pantheon!7 I shall explain: in order to lodge the immense telescope donated by the millionaire Hatkins, it has been necessary to construct a veritable Basilica dome in the midst of the little cupolas. That’s why I mention the Pantheon. The esthetics have suffered cruelly. If only science had gained! But how silly it is to establish so marvelous an optical instrument in Paris! In Paris, which is ceaselessly a-tremble! Paris, whose sky is laden with dust! And on a vibratile monument where radiant heat hinders observation! Nevertheless, the American being desirous that his telescope should be located where it is, one could only bow to his wishes.

  The inaugural ceremony of April 12 was successful in every respect. Many foreigners were in attendance, because of the exoticism of the donor—but I’ll tell you about all that.

  Another thing. You’ll find here enclosed an article from the Lyon Républicain. It piqued my curiosity. Can you, who are on the spot, give me any complementary explanations? Is it serious? I scent one of those almighty farces to which our peasants are accustomed.

  Regards to your wife—and to your son and your delightful daughter-in-law, since you have the honor of their company at present.

  Yours sincerely,

  Jean Le Tellier.

  And this is the reply:

  (Item 10)

  To Monsieur J. Le Tellier

  Directeur de l’Observatoire,

  202, Boulevard Saint-Germain, Paris.

  Artemare, April 20, 1912.

  Let me first, my dear Jean, bless the causes of your hasty arrival in Bugey. The detached tone of your letter does scant justice to the gravity of these causes. Gaudeamus igitur, then!

  As for the “strange depredations,” they might, indeed, be no more than a practical joke—and a damnably bad one! Broadly speaking, it’s something like a haunted house. A haunted countryside, what! And do you know what our villagers, steeped in superstition, call their mysterious tormentors? Can you guess? A local dialect term.8 Sarvants, of course. Phantoms! And, in fact, the perpetrators are ungraspab
le, leaving no trace but the very evidence of their thefts. In consequence of which, as you can imagine, a rather powerful apprehension has grown up as the nocturnal pillages have multiplied. For it continues, as you must have learned from the Lyon Républicain, and the villages of Remoz and Mieugy, between Seyssel and Corbonod, have each been subjected, in their turn, to their little nocturnal raids. By coincidence, when I received your letter, I had just been summoned to a patient in Anglefort. I went there with my “new horses,” and took advantage of the opportunity to go on to the theater of Beffa, as the Italians say.9

  To be frank, the thefts are of small consequence, more annoying than genuinely injurious—but they’re no less bizarre for that, and, being committed with a wealth of comic detail that give them a supernatural air, are well-calculated to strike the imagination of my fellow citizens. One remarkable fact: they are thefts. Where the scoundrels’ hands fall, without exception, something is missing. Not content with ruining a clock’s face, they steal the hands. One never finds the cut branches, the uprooted vegetables, the unhooked sign—nothing. They are thefts, often of useless things. What does one do with an old flag? Branches scarcely in bud? Part of a bicycle thrown on the dung-heap? It’s true that spades, hoes, pitchforks and, more seriously, animals—a cat and a kid—have been stolen, but I have a presentiment that all of that will be returned once the comedy is ended…or, if you prefer, once vengeance has been exacted. Exacted by whom? No one hereabouts can guess. The local people have no known enemies. Then, despairing of finding the cause, the possibility of some vindictiveness from beyond the grave is admitted: a mass rising of revenants, an invasion of sarvants! It’s mad, but what do you expect? It is all perpetrated by night, with the puerile refinements that one is accustomed to attribute to specters; then again, no footprints are found in the morning—no vestige of any presence whatsoever.

  Furthermore, it was quickly observed that the majority of the thefts have been committed at heights where burglaries do not usually take place: at the top of a tree, the roof of a gable, the fronton of a Mairie; and as the malicious individuals take care to erase any trace of the feet of their ladders, two legends were born that are running around the region: one of giant specters, the other of climbing specters!

  Now, where do the blackguards hide during the day? Where do they deposit the fruits of their larcenies? Many questions would be easy to resolve if the countrymen wanted to spend the night on sentry duty—but they lock themselves away. A few bold spirits maintain watch, though, and policemen with them. Unfortunately, every time they set up an ambush in one village, the depredations take place in another. In my opinion, the gang—for there are undoubtedly several of them—retreats by day to the depths of the woods on the Colombier, whose ultimate slopes extend as far as the marauded villages to the west. That’s where they hide themselves and bury their booty, unless they bury it in the sands of the Rhône—which, as you know, runs alongside these communes on the other side, to the east.

  One of the more difficult enigmas to decipher, of course, is the absence of any trail of arrival and departure. Oh, they’re rogues! And they’ve sworn to drive the entire region mad.

  I’m resuming my letter, briefly interrupted; it seems that Anglefort was plundered last night. No one expected that. The inhabitants were bragging when I went there. Well, there it is! A wheelbarrow has been taken, a cart, more branches, though not nearly as many, a scarecrow from a field of green wheat—a few old rags on a stick—and a statue from my client’s garden. It’s that lady’s domestic who told me about it. I don’t know why, but the last two thefts appear to have disturbed her more—her and everyone else in the neighborhood. I don’t see what’s so troubling about the theft of a manikin made of rags and an alabaster gentleman….

  Poultry has been stolen too…but I’ll tell you that story; it’s amusing.

  An old lady, whose house is adjacent to the church, heard a noise in the night. What noise? It was unidentifiable. She went back to sleep. She said that she woke up just as the noise stopped—but then she heard the crow of a cockerel quite clearly. The cock was crowing in the dark and its song was coming from above, and from the bell-tower! It was not, moreover, a dawn fanfare—not the classic cock-a-doodle-do—but “the cry of a cockerel calling for help, which is in danger, or which is being stolen.” And the next day—which is to say, in the morning—she saw, as everyone else could see, that the metal cock that had perched on top of the bell-tower for 100 years had gone!

  Immediately, instead of crying ventriloquism, they cried miracle, and refused to pursue an affair in which the Good Lord was mixed up. Fortunately, the police have opened their eyes—for, whether it is vengeance or a practical joke, enough is enough. They will keep watch, I hope, on the villages that lie in the direction followed by the raiders—to the south. They will mount guard in the string of hamlets that extends between the Rhône and the Colombier.

  The trails so far followed have, however, been abandoned one after another. A tramp has been released, his innocence of any crime admitted—but there are, it’s said, new suspects: two Piedmontese journeymen. They have not been working in the vicinity for long and have followed the same route as the bizarre occurrences. Bearers of picks and spades, they have possessed the necessary tools to bury their pickings from the beginning, before having dishonestly procured a surfeit of analogous instruments—which still suggests a gang.

  Imagine how frightened my wife is! How curious that is, her being so intelligent! “I’ve always had a horror of macabre farces and uproars!” she says. “The worst of it is that, if it persists, one of two things must happen. Until now, the tricksters have followed both the course of the Rhône and the valley of the Colombier, but that stops abruptly at Culoz. Well, since there are villages along the river and around the mountain, it will be necessary for them to choose between the two directions—and if they take it into their heads to negotiate the bend that the Colombier describes, first Mirastel, and then Artemare, will be squarely in their sights.”

  That’s looking too far ahead! All this nonsense will doubtless come to an end well before reaching Culoz, well before you arrive here yourselves on April 26. In the contrary case, your presence, and that of Henri and Fabienne, our dear lovers, will stimulate Augustine’s courage. I am therefore looking forward to that presence with all my heart, both as a brother-in-law and as a husband.

  All best wishes,

  Calixte Monbardeau

  After this letter, whose unexpected amplitude greatly astonished its recipient, the dossier abounds with newspaper cuttings. Like everything which appears to concern the supernatural, the misadventures of Bugey rapidly captivated the French press. These cuttings are, for the most part, mischievous paragraphs riddled with errors. We shall only note therein the adoption of the word sarvants, which, by its apparent novelty and phantasmagorical acceptance, seemed appropriate to designate these mysterious unseen creatures.

  You will read below, however, a sequence of passages selected—so as to avoid repetition—from a very remarkable report compiled by the public prosecutor of Belley—a professional observer. Before being officially commissioned, this magistrate had undertaken investigations on his own behalf, on a freelance basis; the following fragments are taken from the official notes to which the results of those enquiries were consigned.

  (Item 33)

  At this time (that of his arrival, on April 24) seven villages have been molested, all situated along the road from Bellegarde to Culoz, between the river and the mountain, running from north to south. The local populations are almost at their wits’ end, seeing more things than are actually there.

  They are shutting themselves away. The story of the Anglefort cock has provoked a great sensation. I went up the bell-tower. Nothing would have been easier than removing the golden cock without breaking it; it was only attached to an iron shaft by means of a socket, into which its feet were soldered and not pinned. It was, therefore, merely a matter of lifting it up. Even so, in the
ir haste, the delinquents cut through the solder with the aid of a chisel. Was not the cock’s crow sounded to mask the noise of the chisel?

  The vanished branches are quite thick, by comparison with the trunks. Not sawed off, but cut, with shears of unusual strength. The ball at the inn was not unhooked, but had its chain cut, with a single stroke of those same sturdy shears. All the thefts were committed outside and in the dark. There is no case in which two similar objects have been taken. If two branches from a pear-tree are missing at roll-call, one of them was in leaf and the other in bud. No two cabbages of the same species have been carried off. The birds stolen were not of the same species…

  No ladder-marks on the wall of the inn, nor on the façade of the Mairie at Seyssel. None, either, on the tiles of the steeple at Anglefort…

  The method of removing, without leaving any trace, a cart, a wheelbarrow and other heavy and voluminous objects of crime, is also a problem. The employment of a dirigible balloon would explain everything, but that would be strangely disproportionate equipment for a simple joke. The most fantastic stories are circulating in the streets. The Devil has resumed playing his old role here. It’s unbelievable that anyone…

  The large-sized statue stolen from a garden in Anglefort has become a nightmare. It’s rather beautiful, according to the peasants, and “painted in such a way as to simulate a person.”

  A local watchman, down from the forest, tells me that he has heard curt noises of some sort, like the cracking of a whip, in the woods, in broad daylight. Because he found decapitated trees there, he imputes these noises, these clicking sounds, to the action of a chisel. He similarly attests that he has set his foot in a little pool of fresh blood, whose formation on the ground he is incapable of explaining, given that it was not found under a tree—where some animal might have bled—but in a clearing; that it was not mingled with any debris of feather or fur; and that it was not surrounded by any evidence of combat. The man seemed to me to be a nervous victim of the suggestiveness of the stories, further hallucinated by solitude. On my request to elaborate his story further, he did not wish to say anything more.