The Secret of Sarek by Maurice Leblanc

Author:Maurice Leblanc [Leblanc, Maurice]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Kidnapping -- Fiction, Lupin, Arsène (Fictitious character) -- Fiction, Detective and mystery stories, French -- Translations into English, Families -- Fiction, Brittany (France) -- Fiction
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2019-04-03T00:28:05+00:00

XI

The Scourge of God

Vorski! Vorski! The unspeakable creature, the thought of whom filled her with shame and horror, the monstrous Vorski, was not dead! The murder of the spy by one of his colleagues, his burial in the cemetery at Fontainebleau; all this was a fable, a delusion! The only real fact was that Vorski was alive!

Of all the visions that could have haunted Véronique’s brain, there was none so abominable as the sight before her; Vorski standing erect, with his arms crossed and his head up, alive! Vorski alive!

She would have accepted anything with her usual courage, but not this. She had felt strong enough to face and defy no matter what enemy, but not this one. Vorski stood for ignominious disgrace, for insatiable wickedness, for boundless ferocity, for method mingled with madness in crime.

And this man loved her.

She suddenly blushed. Vorski was staring with greedy eyes at the bare flesh of her shoulders and arms, which showed through her tattered bodice, and looking upon this bare flesh as upon a prey which nothing could snatch from him. Nevertheless Véronique did not budge. She had no covering within reach. She pulled herself together under the insult of the man’s desire and defied him with such a glance that he was embarrassed and for a moment turned away his eyes.

Then she cried, with an uncontrollable outburst of feeling:

“My son! Where’s François? I want to see him.”

“Our son is sacred, madame,” he replied. “He has nothing to fear from his father.”

“I want to see him.”

He lifted his hand as one taking an oath:

“You shall see him, I swear.”

“Dead, perhaps!” she said, in a hollow voice.

“As much alive as you and I, madame.”

There was a fresh pause. Vorski was obviously seeking his words and preparing the speech with which the implacable conflict between them was to open.

He was a man of athletic stature, with a powerful frame, legs slightly bowed, an enormous neck swollen by great bundles of muscles and a head unduly small, with fair hair plastered down and parted in the middle. That in him which at one time produced an impression of brute strength, combined with a certain distinction, had become with age the massive and vulgar aspect of a professional wrestler posturing on the hustings at a fair. The disquieting charm which once attracted the women had vanished; and all that remained was a harsh and cruel expression of which he tried to correct the hardness by means of an impassive smile.

He unfolded his arms, drew up a chair and, bowing to Véronique, said:

“Our conversation, madame, will be long and at times painful. Won’t you sit down?”

He waited for a moment and, receiving no reply, without allowing himself to be disconcerted, continued:

“Perhaps you would rather first take some refreshment at the sideboard. Would you care for a biscuit and a thimbleful of old claret or a glass of champagne?”

He affected an exaggerated politeness, the essentially Teutonic politeness of the semibarbarians who are anxious to prove that they

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