The Woman of Mystery Part 32

"But what does it all mean?" exclaimed Bernard and the lieutenant.

"It means simply this," said Paul, "that we have before us what is evidently the explanation of the great mystery surrounding the capture of Corvigny and its two forts."

"How?"

"Corvigny and its two forts were demolished in a few minutes, weren't they? Where did those gunshots come from, considering that Corvigny is fifteen miles from the frontier and that not one of the enemy's guns had crossed the frontier? They came from here, from this underground fortress."

"Impossible."

"Here are the rails on which they moved the two gigantic pieces which were responsible for the bombardment."

"I say! You can't bombard from the bottom of a cavern! Where are the embrasures?"

"The rails will take us there. Show a good light, Bernard. Look, here's a platform mounted on a pivot. It's a good size, eh? And here's the other platform."

"But the embrasures?"

"In front of you, Bernard."

"That's a wall."

"It's the wall which, together with the rock of the hill, supports the terrace above the Liseron, opposite Corvigny. And two circular breaches were made in the wall and afterwards closed up again. You can see the traces of the closing quite plainly."

Bernard and the lieutenant could not get over their astonishment:

"Why, it's an enormous work!" said the officer.

"Absolutely colossal!" replied Paul. "But don't be too much surprised, my dear fellow. It was begun sixteen or seventeen years ago, to my own knowledge. Besides, as I told you, part of the work was already done, because we are in the lower rooms of the old Ornequin buildings; and, having found them, all they had to do was to arrange them according to the object which they had in view. There is something much more astounding, though!"

"What is that?"

"The tunnel which they had to build in order to bring their two pieces here."

"A tunnel?"

"Well, of course! How do you expect they got here? Let's follow the rails, in the other direction, and we'll soon come to the tunnel."

As he antic.i.p.ated, the two sets of rails joined a little way back and they saw the yawning entrance to a tunnel about nine feet wide and the same height. It dipped under ground, sloping very gently. The walls were of brick. No damp oozed through the walls; and the ground itself was perfectly dry.

"ebrecourt branch-line," said Paul, laughing. "Seven miles in the shade.

And that is how the stronghold of Corvigny was bagged. First, a few thousand men pa.s.sed through, who killed off the little Ornequin garrison and the posts on the frontier and then went on to the town. At the same time, the two huge guns were brought up, mounted and trained upon sites located beforehand. When these had done their business, they were removed and the holes stopped up. All this didn't take two hours."

"But to achieve those two decisive hours the Kaiser worked for seventeen years, bless him!" said Bernard. "Well, let's make a start."

"Would you like my men to go with you?" suggested the lieutenant.

"No, thank you. It's better that my brother-in-law and I should go by ourselves. If we find, however, that the enemy has destroyed his tunnel, we will come back and ask for help. But it will astonish me if he has.

Apart from the fact that he has taken every precaution lest the existence of the tunnel should be discovered, he is likely to have kept it intact in case he himself might want to use it again."

And so, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the two brothers-in-law started on their walk down the imperial tunnel, as Bernard called it.

They were well armed, supplied with provisions and ammunition and resolved to pursue the adventure to the end.

In a few minutes, that is to say, two hundred yards farther on, the light of their pocket-lantern showed them the steps of a staircase on their right.

"First turning," remarked Paul. "I take it there must be at least three of them."

"Where does the staircase lead to?"

"To the chateau, obviously. And, if you want to know to what part, I say, to the room with the portrait. There's no doubt that this is the way by which Major Hermann entered the chateau on the evening of the day when we attacked it. He had his accomplice Karl with him. Seeing our names written on the wall, they stabbed the two men sleeping in the room, Private Geriflour and his comrade."

Bernard d'Andeville stopped short:

"Look here, Paul, you've been bewildering me all day. You're acting with the most extraordinary insight, going straight to the right place at which to dig, describing all that happened as if you had been there, knowing everything and foreseeing everything. I never suspected you of that particular gift. Have you been studying Sherlock Holmes?"

"Not even a.r.s.ene Lupin," said Paul, moving on again. "But I've been ill and I have thought things over. Certain pa.s.sages in elisabeth's diary, in which she spoke of her perplexing discoveries, gave me the first hint. I began by asking myself why the Germans had taken such pains to create a desert all around the chateau. And in this way, putting two and two together, drawing inference after inference, examining the past and the present, remembering my meeting with the German Emperor and a number of things which are all linked together, I ended by coming to the conclusion that there was bound to be a secret communication between the German and the French sides of the frontier, terminating at the exact place from which it was possible to fire on Corvigny. It seemed to me that, _a priori_, this place must be the terrace; and I became quite sure of it when, just now, I saw on the terrace a dead tree, overgrown with ivy, near which elisabeth thought that she heard sounds coming from underground. From that moment, I had nothing to do but get to work."

"And your object is . . . ?" asked Bernard.

"I have only one object: to deliver elisabeth."

"Your plan?"

"I haven't one. Everything will depend on circ.u.mstances; but I am convinced that I am on the right track."

In fact all his surmises were proving to be correct. In ten minutes they reached a s.p.a.ce where another tunnel, also supplied with rails, branched off to the right.

"Second turning," said Paul. "Corvigny Road. It was down here that the Germans marched to the town and took our troops by surprise before they even had time to a.s.semble; it was down here that the peasant-woman went who accosted you in the evening. The outlet must be at some distance from the town, perhaps in a farm belonging to the supposed peasant-woman."

"And the third turning?" said Bernard.

"Here it is."

"Another staircase?"

"Yes; and I have no doubt that it leads to the chapel. We may safely presume that, on the day when my father was murdered, the Emperor had come to examine the works which he had ordered and which were being executed under the supervision of the woman who accompanied him. The chapel, which at that time was not inside the walls of the park, is evidently one of the exits from the secret network of roads of which we are following the main thoroughfare."

Paul saw two more of these ramifications, which, judging from their position and direction, must issue near the frontier, thus completing a marvelous system of espionage and invasion.

"It's wonderful," said Bernard. "It's admirable. If this isn't Kultur, I should like to know what is. One can see that these people have the true sense of war. The idea of digging for twenty years at a tunnel intended for the possible bombardment of a tiny fortress would never have occurred to a Frenchman. It needs a degree of civilization to which we can't lay claim. Did you ever know such beggars!"

His enthusiasm increased still further when he observed that the roof of the tunnel was supplied with ventilating-shafts. But at last Paul enjoined him to keep silent or to speak in a whisper:

"You can imagine that, as they thought fit to preserve their lines of communication, they must have done something to make them unserviceable to the French. ebrecourt is not far off. Perhaps there are listening-posts, sentries posted at the right places. These people leave nothing to chance."

One thing that lent weight to Paul's remark was the presence, between the rails, of those cast-iron slabs which covered the chambers of mines laid in advance, so that they could be exploded by electricity. The first was numbered five, the second four; and so on. Paul and Bernard avoided them carefully; and this delayed their progress, for they no longer dared switch on their lamps except at brief intervals.

At about seven o'clock they heard or rather they seemed to hear confused sounds of life and movement on the ground overhead. They felt deeply moved. The soil above them was German soil; and the echo brought the sounds of German life.