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Updated: May 11, 2025
She was unable to resist all the amusing and novel sensations which the adventure, proposed by Renine, promised her. It was really too tempting. The jet necklace, the toque with the autumn leaves, the old woman with the silver rosary: how could she resist their mysterious appeal and how could she refuse this opportunity of showing Renine what she was capable of doing?
Hortense did not move. "Whatever farce he may play," Renine had written, "have the courage to remain impassive." Perhaps he was not playing a farce. Nevertheless she forced herself to be calm and indifferent.
The ruffled deputy raised his head, as did the other people present. The voice came from the ceiling. The bulls-eye window had opened and Renine, leaning through it, was waving his arms: "I wish to be heard!... I have several remarks to make ... especially in respect of the zigzag footprints!... It all lies in that!... Mathias had not been drinking!..."
There was a pause. Then Serge Renine said, smiling, with his eyes fixed on hers and in a voice which she alone could hear: "I am sure that you'll keep your promise and that you'll let me come with you. It would be better." "For whom? For you, you mean?" "For you, too, I assure you." She coloured slightly, but did not reply, shook hands with a few people around her and left the room.
The woman said that her mistress had gone out at two o'clock, with a stamped letter in her hand, saying that she was going to the post and that she would come back to dress. This was the last that had been seen of her. "To whom was the letter addressed?" "To you, sir. I saw the writing on the envelope: Prince Serge Renine." He waited until midnight, but in vain.
Next morning he learnt from Adolphe that Dalbreque, on the previous evening, after all the lights were out, had carried down a bicycle from his room and mounted it and had not returned until shortly before sunrise. The bicycle tracks led Renine to the uninhabited Chateau des Landes, five miles from the village.
At last they reached Ville d'Avray. There was a steep, sloping road on the right and walls interrupted by a long railing. "Drive round the grounds, Adolphe. We mustn't give warning of our presence, must we, M. de Lourtier? Where is the cottage?" "Just opposite," said M. de Lourtier-Vaneau. They got out a little farther on. Renine began to run along a bank at the side of an ill-kept sunken road.
Then she came out through the casino. Hortense, on leaning forward, saw her entering one of the chalets annexed to the Hotel Hauville and, a moment later, caught sight of her again on the balcony. "Eleven o'clock," said Renine. "Whoever it is, he or she, or one of the card-players, or one of their wives, it won't be long before some one goes to the appointed place."
He looks as though he were going to pitch forward." "That's very clever of you," said Renine. "The fault is almost imperceptible and it needs a trained eye to see it. Really, however, as a matter of logic, the weight of the body ought to have its way and, in accordance with natural laws, the little god ought to take a header." After a pause he continued: "I noticed that flaw on the first day.
"You will be called upon at most to make restitution." "Restitution?" Renine leant over the table and said: "In one of those drawers is a deed awaiting your signature. It is a draft agreement between you and your niece Hortense Daniel, relating to her private fortune, which fortune was squandered and for which you are responsible. Sign the deed."
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