Enter the Nyctalope by Jean de La Hire

Author:Jean de La Hire
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Coat Press
Published: 2013-08-09T00:00:00+00:00

Part Three: The Artificial Heart

Chapter I: In the Bear’s Jaws

Eight hours later, Adrien Fortis was no longer ignorant regarding the organization of Espionage and Anarchism, and the preparations for war and nihilist action of which Serge Ivanov was the secret executive leader and of which Alexis Roudine constituted the sole archivist-historian, the supreme counselor, the inspirer, the financial backer and the frequent publisher of journals, tracts, pamphlets and books of propaganda—brutal, primitive and immediate propaganda, or savant, disguised and long-range, according to the case in point.

In fact, Adrien Fortis had played his part admirably.

Yes, played his part, for—haven’t you guessed?—Adrien Fortis was, in reality, Leo Saint-Clair, the Nyctalope!

Eventually—and in what terribly tragic, tortuous and abominably mortal circumstances!—he would record the story of the rapid stages of his transformation and the prodigiously intelligent, courageous and self-confident deeds that he conceived and accomplished during this brief period of his life.9 On Wednesday March 20, 1912, however, at exactly 3:20 a.m., Leo Saint-Clair related nothing, because he had no time. The moment of the supreme action was very close at hand, and he had wanted to see—merely to see—and embrace his friends before hurling himself, coolly but recklessly, into that “supreme action,” which would, in his opinion either give him victory or precipitate him into torture followed by death.

Every night during that long, interminable and exceedingly painful week, Robert Champeau, René Croqui and Jean Degains had waited for Leo Saint-Clair behind a little iron door, normally unused, which cut out a hollow rectangle in the least visible section of the high wall encircling the private Sanatorium du Bouchet.

That door opened into an alley that was always deserted by night, along which no one passed even by day but occasional servants from the neighboring villas desirous of taking a short cut.

Every night, from three until 3:30 a.m., all three of them grimly undertook that duty, although they would have been able to take turns. Since the morning of Wednesday March 13, Champeau, Croqui and Degains had been there, motionless and silent, behind that gate, waiting for their leader, whom they admired more every day, and who was now beloved with an increasingly-painful disquiet. Seven times the 30 minutes of waiting, initially vibrant with hope, then tremulous with anxiety, had run by without the cry of recognition that would bid them to open the door as quickly as possible resounding in the nocturnal silence.

Seven nights! What anguish!

A week without the slightest news, without a single telephone call, telegram, letter or note—which Monsieur Ambroise Dorsang would have been able to receive discreetly and would have immediately passed on.

Finally, at 3:17 a.m. on March 20, the cry had rent the air. The door was opened; the Nyctalope came in; the door was closed again. They ran into the garden.

“No, no, I won’t explain anything!” said the Nyctalope to Champeau, Croqui and Degains—who, shivering with emotion, stood elbow-to-elbow in front of him in the vestibule of the private chalet put at the disposal of the “French forwards” in the Sanatorium grounds.

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