Bacq

A lugubrious scene had just taken place in the house of Villefaramir, a mansion that rejoiced in

the alliterative appellation of Voûte du vautour, the Vulture’s Vault; for Mme. d’Imrahil, the

mother of his first wife, Finduilette, had just arrived with the doleful news that her husband,

the Marquis d’Imrahil, was dead. 


Even before receiving this news, Villefaramir had been in a dark mood, sitting alone in his study

and going through his secret papers, where he had listed the names of all who had become his

enemies.  He shook his head, doubting whether perhaps the Balrogue had confessed to some priest,

who had revealed it to the Count of Monte Fato, who, in order to clarify … but why? What possible

interest could M. de Monte Fato, or M. Annataro, son of a ring-maker from Harondor, arrived in

Arnor for the first time, have in a fact so sombre, mysterious, and useless?


It was then that the old lady entered without being announced, and cried, “Oh monsieur! Oh,

monsieur!  I shall die! M. d’Imrahil is dead!”


“Dead?” stammered Villefaramir.  “Just now?”


“One week ago,” replied Mme. d’Imrahil.  “He had been suffering for some days, indeed ever since

Valartine and your new wife came to visit, but the idea of seeing our Valartine married rendered

him courageous, and he was determined to leave.  Then, six leagues from Annuminas, he was taken

with a sleep that seemed deeper than natural, deeper than the sleep of Dildon after he had

sampled the opium of Ungolianne; I awakened him and talked to him a bit about when Trolquien

celebrated Noel; he smiled, and did not speak again.”


Valartine returned from the ball chez Mme. de Pérégrin.  Mute caresses, painful swelling of the

heart, broken sighs, burning tears – voilà the only details recountable from that interview, or

so the loremasters tell us.  Worn out with grief, Mme. d’Imrahil made her way to bed, leaning on

Valartine.


The next morning, Mme. d’Imrahil called Villefaramir and Valartine to her bedside and said: “I

have little time left to live; let Valartine’s marriage to my third-cousin twice-removed,

Arafrantz d’Imrahil, be hastened, so that her grandmother at least may be present at it.” 


Valartine said nothing, but remembered Morrie’s horrible promise that he would fall upon his

sword like Turin, though the sword of Morrie could not quote the epigrams of Jean-Georges

Doubiat-Buche de Jerc, should Valartine marry another.  Cruel déchirement of the heart!  Of what

dilemma was she on the horns, more bitter than the liqueurs of the Orcs!  Had she durst, she

would have spoken to her grandmother of her love for Meurtrier Morrie; but Morrie was of plebeian

extraction, and Valartine knew the contempt of that proud Marquise d’Imrahil for all that was not

of blood. For the Aragonnist nobles looked askance at the presence of the middle-classes in their

midst, and it was a thing unheard of that one of patrician ancestry should wed one of lesser

cachet, a mid-level officer whose wealth came from trade. Such mésalliances had once led to the

Kin-strife and an absolutely appalling saison where the only decent ball was crashed by

Wainriders.


“My good grandmother,” she said, “in these days of sorrow … would you want a marriage to be made

under such sad auspices?”


“I will die!  Before dying, I would see my son-in-law, and command him to make my daughter-in-law

happy, to read in his eyes whether he will obey, so that I might come from the tomb to haunt him,

if he dare not be what he ought!”


“Madame, you must leave these ideas, that touch on madness,” said Villefaramir.  “The dead do not

return from the grave, like Gorlime the Unfashionable, whose advice to Béren about spats had such

tragic consequences.”


“And I, monsieur, tell you that it is not as you believe.  Last night, I slept a horrible sleep,

and with my eyes closed, I saw, at the very place where you are now, coming from that corner

where there is a door that gives onto Mme. de Villefaramir’s medicine cabinet, I saw a white

form, and, as if Érou feared that I might reject the witness of only one sense, I heard my glass

move on my table.  It was the soul of my husband, come to call me; now, if he can call me, why

cannot my soul return to defend my daughter?”


“Oh, madame,” said Villefaramir, moved despite himself to the depth of his entrails, “do not

entertain such lugubrious ideas, you will live long and happily with us, loved, honoured …”


“Never!” cried Mme. d’Imrahil.  “Où chébin estel anim! Let us make haste!  Let Arafrantz and a

notary come at once!”


“Oh, my mother!” cried Valartine, kissing the forehead of Mme. d’Imrahil.  “You have the fever,

it is not a notary we should call, but a physician!”

~~~

Morrie waited at the usual spot for the rendezvous he was wont to have with Valartine.  The

chipmunks were off on holiday on the coast of Lindon.  Hiding in a barrel of pipe-weed, he was

filled with a dread bordering on despair at Valartine’s delay, watching the long shadows of that

cheerless house, without a light to be perceived through its curtain of horror, save a

corpse-light that illuminated nothing but Villefaramir’s execrable taste in architecture.


As the moon came out from the cloud that covered it like the veil of Luthienne, Morrie saw

Villefaramir leave the house, followed by a man in black, whom he recognised as Dr. Tolliers. 

They approached the barrel where Meurtrier was hiding.


“Ah, dear doctor!” cried Villefaramir. “Voici the Valards that have cursed my house with the

eagle-droppings of Manvre!  What a horrible death!  Seek not to console me, for the wound is too

deep!”

 
A cold sweat froze the forehead of the young man in hiding.  Who then had died in that house that

the steuard called accursed?


“My dear monsieur de Villefaramir,” said the doctor in a voice so terrible as to redouble the

fears of Morrie.  “I have not brought you here to console you; on the contrary, to tell you that,

beyond the misfortune that has afflicted you lurks another, far worse.  Let us be seated.” 


Villefaramir fell rather than sat on a bench.


“Mme. d’Imrahil was of advanced age, no doubt, but she enjoyed an excellent health,” continued

Dr. Tolliers.


“Grief has slain her, monsieur!” cried Villefaramir.


“Nay,” said the physician.  “Grief kills, certainly; but not in ten minutes.  The symptoms she

exhibited in her agony were manifestly those caused by sunni-délit. Did anyone make an order of

the pharmacist without my consent?”


“None.”


“Did Mme. d’Imrahil have enemies?”


“Not that I know of.”


“Is anyone interested in her death?”


“Mais non, mais non; Valartine is her sole heir, but if such a thought came to my heart I would

stab it rather than suffer such a thought!”


“My counsel, then, is to watch your enemies, whereof you have many.”


“Very well, but I beg of you, do not reveal these suspicions to soul, let them be buried ever

between us like the imitation silmaril of Thingolaud, for the scandal is beyond endurance!”


The doctor promised to carry out Villefaramir’s wish, and the two made their way back to the

house. 


By one of those incomprehensible élans of youth, Morrie bounded out of his hiding-place and

rushed to the house.  Need drove him.  He climbed up the stairway to the perron and pushed the

door, which opened without resistance, like the gates of Morie when the password “choucroute” had

been uttered.  He had arrived at that point of exaltation where the appearance of Villefaramir

himself would have aroused no fear; nay, if the Orc-gendarme Chagrat-Chagrin had offered

Meurtrier a glass of cognac, he had shaken his hand.  Morrie was mad.


Happily, he saw no one.  Guided by the knowledge of the house he had obtained from Valartine, he

arrived at the alcove where the deceased lay; Valartine knelt beside the bed, praying and

sobbing.  Unable to resist this spectacle, Meurtrier sighed, and the head drowned in tears and

marbled on the velvet of the fauteuil, a head of du Nigle, rose and turned towards him. 

Valartine evinced no astonishment in seeing Morrie; there are no intermediary emotions for a

heart swollen by a supreme despair.


“Forgiveth me, belovedeth!” spock he.  “I waited for eight and a half hours, inquietude seized

me, I leapt over the wall and made my way into the house, hearing rumours of death, or belike the

presentiment of deatheth unto my travailed soul!  Musteth I go?”


“Nay, stay; if thou leaveth, willest thou be discovered, and all is bedoom unto us.”  She was

lost a brief spell in the unfamiliar territory of thought; then she respake:  “There is but one

issue from this house for you, and that iseth the appartements of my grandfather.  Come!  Long

haveth I bethought we shullen need his counsel, how be it expressed but through smoke-rings.”


“Have a care!” said Morrie.  “The blindfold is fallen from mine eyen, and now see I that demence

brought me hither.  Art thou in the faculty of thine senses?”


“I am; come,” replied Valartine.  Meurtrier followed her down a corridor and down the small

stairway that led to Dénéthoirtier’s apartment. He could not forbear from once again begging

Valartine’s permission to reveal the tragic story unto the Count of Monte Fato; but this she

would not allow, for troubles, she said, followed him like importune dance-partners, and ever the

oftener the worse. Valartine opened the door and led Meurtrier into thw sanctum.  The potato-like

victim of the wrath of the Valards sat on a fauteuil; on beholding her, his eye shone.


“Alack,” said Valartine.  “Thou knowest, O grandfather, that after the death of my grandmother

Mme. d’Imrahil, there is now none save thee to whom I may confide my joys and my sorrows?”  A

smoke-ring of utter tenderness issued forth from the old man, or tuber.


Valartine took Meurtrier by the hand. “Alors,” she said, “Thou knowest I loveth Meurtrier Morrie,

the son of an honourable businessman from Hobitonne, of an irreproachable name that Meurtrier

hath rendered glorious, for at thirty-three he is captain of the Uruc-haïs and officer of the

Legion of Stewed Rabbits.  Eh bien, forced were I to wed another, must I slay myself, leaping

from the Tour-Eithil or immolating myself on the pyre of Féanoir!”


The old man evinced a world of tumultuous thoughts.  Then he blew a smoke-ring that said, as

clearly as the oracle of Galadriella: “Trust in me; I have the means to prevent that Arafrantz

should ever wed Valartine.” And such was the authority of this smoke-ring, that neither Morrie

nor Valartine durst doubt of his ability to accomplish his will, cursed though he were by the

Valards with the appearance and immobility of a potato with a face and chapeau.


~~~

Little enthusiasm had Arafrantz for his impending marriage with Valartine, for he found her

tragic-opera style of discourse somewhat off-putting.  Nevertheless, like the hobbite who became

a pirate on a bet despite his fear of boating, he was a slave of duty, and determined to see the

unhappy business through.  Such was his frame of mind when he received a message that

Dénéthoirtier wished to speak to him as soon as possible.  Dutiful as always, he hastened to

Voûte du vautour, the Villefaramir mansion, arriving there on Thursday the 22 Cermidor, in the

hope that, through his devotion, he might overcome whatever repugnances M. de Dénéthoirtier might

have in regards to the marriage.  M. de Villefaramir and Valartine accompanied him to the old

man’s appartements.  Dénéthoirtier’s faithful servant Barahier was already present, and held a

mysterious document of whose existence only he and Dénéthoirtier knew.  At a commanding

smoke-ring from him who still conserved a fierce intelligence under the guise of a Solanacean,

Barahier handed the document to Arafrantz.


On the envelope, Arafrantz read the words:


“To be deposed after my death to General Du Smiau, who will transmit it to his heirs, with the

injunction to conserve it as containing papers of the utmost importance.”


“Read,” puffed the potato.


Arafrantz opened the envelope, and a great silence filled the chamber.  He read aloud: “Extract

from the procès-verbaux of a meeting of the Sharcoléonist Club, rue St.-Figuet, held the 5

Nénimôse, 1815.”  He stopped.  “That is the day my father was assassinated!” he cried. 


“Continue,” said the old man’s smoke-ring.


“In consequence of a letter transmitted from the isle of Tol-Morwenne by the captain of the

Pharazon, recommending to the confidence of the Sharcoléonist Club General Ignace-Mouse

d’Imrahil, the president of the club wrote to beg the general to come to their meeting of the 5

Nénimôse, on condition that his eyes be bound in accord with the latest fashions of Ithiliande. 

He accepted the conditions and made no resistance to being blindfolded.  ‘The only risk we run,’

he said with a laugh, “is that your budget will be depleted after I have demanded amends for

every fall and stubbed toe.” The president did not laugh.


“Arrived at the meeting-place, the general was invited to remove his blindfold.  He did so, and

was interrogated on his political opinions, but he demurred, saying the letter from Tol-Morwenne

should suffice as an indication of their character.”


“On further questioning,” resumed Arafrantz, the general remarked, ‘There has elapsed but a short

time since one swore loyalty to Aragon XVIII, that one should violate it for the benefit of the

ex-emperor.’


“’General,’ said the president, ‘for us there is neither king nor ex-emperor, there is only one

Emperor, unjustly exiled from his dominions by violence and treason. But when you pulled down

your house you also doomed yours. What ship will bear you back across so wide a sea? A grey ship,

full of decrepit aristos. Your only hope now is to comport yourself as a man of gallantry; speak

no word of this meeting to soul that lives.’


“’What you call gallant, I call complicity in your crimes!’”


“There was a general murmur of astonishment at the general’s audacity; the president imposed

silence by singing a song of wizardry.


“’Your frankness itself,’ added the president, ‘dictates the conditions we must give you: you

will swear on your honour to reveal nothing of what you have heard here.’


“’What is the formula?’ asked the general, trembling slightly; but he laid a hand on his épée

“’I swear on my honour never to reveal what has happened between nine and ten p.m. on the 5

Nénimôse, 1815, and I will keep this oath till the Club release me, or death take me, or the

world end.’


“The general repeated the oath, but in so low a voice that he could scarce be heard.


“Having declared the general free of the realm of Arnor, the president entered a carriage with

the general, after having bound his eyes, with three other members of the club.  ’Where do you

wish us to take you?’ he asked.


“’Wherever I may be free of your presence, more distasteful yet than that of the dwargues who

littered in Lorient.’


“’Have a care, monsieur,’ said the president.  ‘You no longer have to do with the club, but with

individuals; do not insult them if you do not wish to be responsible for the insult.’


“’You are very brave in your carriage as in your club, for the reason, monsieur, that four are

always stronger than one. Such is the valour of thieving ruffians and squint-eyed half-orc

footpads.’

 
“The carriage stopped.  ‘You have insulted a man, and he now demands satisfaction,’ said the

president.  ‘You and I both have our épées; you have no second, one of these messieurs will be

yours.  You may remove your blindfold.’


“’Just another excuse for a murder,’ said the general with a shrug.  ‘Such deeds the Enemy loves;

he’d think he’d found a new friend.’


“’He would indeed,’ said the president with grim irony.  The combatants descended from the

carriage onto a small public square overhung by the cruel pinnacles and iron crown of the Bird

and Bébé The duel began.


“The general broke early and fell; the witnesses believed him dead, but his adversary helped him

to rise.  Instead of calming the general, this circumstance seemed to irritate him, and he

assailed his adversary with vigor.


“In the end, the general was slain; the seconds deposited his remains in a nearby volcano.


“The general therefore perished in a lawful duel, and not an ambush.  In faith whereof we have

signed these presents, lest a moment arrive when one of the actors in this terrible scene be

accused of foul play.


“Flintepierre, Pez, Maine-Force.”


Valartine, who had understood the significance of this story before anyone else, recoiled.


“Monsieur,” said Arafrantz to Dénéthoirtier.  “Since you seem to have my interests at heart, do

not, I pray, refuse me one last satisfaction: tell me the name of the president of the club, that

I may know who has slain my father.”


“Believe me, monsieur,” said Villefaramir.  “It is not worth the trouble of finding out who did

this deed. Shall we play croquet?”


Three terrible smoke-rings issued forth from the bowels of the sentient potato that sat before

Arafrantz’s horrified gaze. They spelled out the word: MOI.


“You! You, monsieur?” cried Arafrantz.  “Is it you that slew my father?”


“Yes,” replied the old man, with a majestic gaze.


Arafrantz fainted.  Villefaramir fled, for the idea had come into his mind to stifle what

existence remained in the potato’s heart.


The next day, the Annuminasian monde was shocked to learn that Arafrantz had cancelled his

nuptials with Valartine de Villefaramir, and that Sacqueville-Danglars had similarly cancelled

Éowénie’s engagement to Réginard.


~~~

The very next occasion that presented itself, when M. de Villefaramir was at an execution and

Mme. de Villefaramir at a ball, Meurtrier Morrie made haste to kneel before Dénéthoirtier and

Valartine and offer, not thanks only, but almost adoration. He arrived accompanied by the old

man’s servant Barahier, who was in difficulty to keep up.


After witnessing, with as much benevolence as a tuber can muster, Valartine and Meurtrier

exchange their vow to wed as soon as Valartine had reached her majority, Dénéthoirtier noticed

with concern the exudations of perspiration that irrigated the forehead of Barahier like the

canals of Pelargigolo.


“Ah!” said Barahier.  “It is that I have run much; but M. de Morrie was swifter far than I; for

were the west wind made visible and clad in a sharp military costume, even so had it appeared.”


“Come, good Barahier,” said Valartine. “Drink a glass of lemonade, for I see that you covet it as

Saroumand coveted the tobacco of Gandault.”


“The truth is that I am dying of thirst, and would gladly drink eau-de-Morgoule in your honor.”


“Drink, then, and return when you are done,” said the girl.


After Barahier had done according to Valartine’s word, the doorbell rang. Barahier went to answer

it.


“That must be the doctor,” said Valartine. “Barahier will accompany you to the door,” she added

to Meurtrier.  “And remember, monsieur, never to risk a démarche that may compromise our

happiness.”


“I have promised to wait, and I shall wait,” replied Morrie.


At this moment, Barahier entered.


“Who rang?” asked Valartine.


“Dr. Tolliers,” said Barahier, tottering as if barely able to stand.


“Eh bien, what is wrong with you, Barahier?” said Valartine.


The old servant did not reply; but the trembling that seized him increased by degrees; his

expression announced a nervous attack of the most intense.


“M. Tolliers, M. Tolliers!” cried Valartine in a strangled voice.  “Come to our aid!” Barahier

fell at the feet of Dénéthoirtier, crying, “Kind master!”


Villefaramir, attracted by the cries, rushed into the room.  Morrie hid behind Thibault’s

neo-Gothic scratching-post.


Dénéthoirtier was boiling with impatience and terror; like a Balrogue intoxicated with extreme

coffee, his soul flew to the aid of the unfortunate, his friend rather than his servant. But what

could he do in such a pass, immobile Solanacean as he was?


“Doctor, doctor, make haste!” cried Villefaramir.


“Come, stepmother, and bring your flacon of essence de champignon!” cried Valartine.


“What is wrong?” said Mme. de Villefaramir in a calm, metallic voice, as she slowly descended the

stairs. Her first glance, when she entered the room, was for M. de Dénéthoirtier; her second for

the dying man.


“But in the name of heaven, madame, where is the doctor?” said Villefaramir. “It is an apoplexy,

you see it well, a little tim-benzedrine will save him.”


“Has he eaten lately?” asked Mme. de Villefaramir, eluding the question.


“No; he has only drunk a glass of lemonade from the jug of bon papa,” said Valartine.


Mme. de Villefaramir trembled; Dénéthoirtier enveloped her in his profound gaze.


“But for the love of heaven, madame, where is the doctor?” repeated Villefaramir. “Answer!”


“He is with Thibault, who is feeling cranky,” said Mme. de Villefaramir, no longer able to elude.


As Villefaramir bounded upstairs, Mme. de Villefaramir handed Valartine a vial of tim-benzedrine.

“Take,” she said. “I am going back to my room, for I cannot abide the sight of blood.”


As soon as she had left, Morrie reappeared, clung her to the bosom as one he loved more than

winning a four-farthing stone at the casino, and departed. At the same time, Villefaramir and the

physician re-entered. Barahier appeared to be reviving.


“Bring me water, athélas, and oil of Lucie-Pévensée immediately,” said Dr. Tolliers, puffing at a

meerschaum of Brie. “And let all leave at once.”


“I too?” inquired Valartine.


“You above all, mademoiselle,” said the doctor bluntly. Valartine looked at Dr. Tolliers with

astonishment, but obeyed.


After examining Barahier and questioning him, the physician bounded towards the tray containing

the lemonade, and seized it with the alacrity of a giant spider hunting orcs.


“Ah, monsieur le docteur!” cried Barahier.  “Voilà the evil returns! ”


All effort of the doctor to save the old servant was vain; the malady worsened. Villefaramir ran

in search of athélas as if the very lawyers of Mordor pursued him.


“Can you speak?” said Dr. Tolliers at last. “Tell me who brought you this lemonade.”


“Mlle. Valartine,” said Barahier with his last breath.


“O mon Érou, O mon Érou,” murmured the doctor, striking his forehead.


When M. de Villefaramir returned with the athélas, the physician shook his head and drew him

aside. “You are too late,” he said. “Barahier is dead.”


“So soon?”


“Yes, but that ought not to astonish you, M. de Villefaramir,” said the doctor in a sombre voice.

“One dies quickly in your house.”


“What!” said the magistrate in a voice of consternation and horror. “You return to that horrible

idea!”


“Always, always, always, for it has not left me for a moment,” said Dr. Tolliers. “And that you

may be convinced, listen to me!


“There is a poison that leaves hardly a trace; I know it well. I recognised its symptoms with

Barahier as earlier with Mme. d’Imrahil. This poison can be recognised by the blue traces it

leaves in any pipe-weed that be dowsed therein.” The doctor took a pinch of Dénéthoirtier’s

tobacco and dipped it in the lemonade. One saw at once a blue tint like velour de smurreau

envelop the weed in its sinister coil.


“The unfortunate Barahier has been poisoned by sunni-délit,” said the doctor. “I aver it before

Érou and man.”


Villefaramir said nothing, but raised his arms to heaven and fell thunderstruck into the sole

chair not yet bescratched by Thibaut.


“Oh! Death reigns in my house!” he cried.


“Say rather: crime,” returned Dr. Tolliers.


“In my house!” repeated Villefaramir, throwing a sombre regard around the room, as if he

suspected even Dénéthoirtier’s snuffbox of concealing louche designs.


“Be a man,” exhorted the physician. “Interpreter of the law, honor yourself by a complete

immolation.”


“Speak, doctor. I will have courage.”


“Eh bien, monsieur, you have in the bosom of your house, in your family perhaps, one of those

dreadful phaenomena whereof each age produces its own example. Erendisette and Tar-Ancalimée are

an exception that prove the intelligent design of Providence in willing the destruction of

Numéneur, soiled with many crimes. Ungolianne and Germaine de Greer are the results of the

penible travails of a civilisation in its genesis, wherein man learned to dominate the spirit,

were it through the emissary of the Shadow. Eh bien, all these women were young and beautiful,

and there flowered upon their foreheads like simbelmyne on the bordello of Edoras the same flower

of innocence that adorns the forehead of the culprit within your house.”


“Oh, mon Érou, oh mon Érou!” murmured Villefaramir, wringing his arms.


“Follow the path of the criminal. He kills M. d’Imrahil; he kills Mme. d’Imrahil: a double

inheritance to gather. Dénéthoirtier makes a will against your entire family, and is spared,

since one expects nothing of him. Then he changes his will, and is stricken; for I do not believe

for a moment that the killer was interested in the poor domestic; like Noques the sous-chef of

the Count of Woutteau-Major, he died for another.”


“Mercy!” cried Villefaramir. “Mercy for my daughter!”


“You see, it is you who have named her, you, her father! No mercy: it is Mlle. de Villefaramir

who prepared the medications that sent M. and Mme. d’Imrahil to their deaths, and it is Mlle. de

Villefaramir who brought the lemonade intended for M. de Dénéthoirtier. Mlle. de Villefaramir is

the culprit! Mlle. de Villefaramir is the poisoner! Monsieur le steuard du roi, I denounce to you

Mlle. de Villefaramir; do your duty!”


“Doctor, I resist no more, I do not defend myself; but for pity’s sake, spare my life and my

honor!”


“M. de Villefaramir, had your daughter only committed one crime, I would have been content to

flame her. Had she committed a second, I would hand her over to the Wood-elves, that they might

treat her with such kindness as they can find in their wise hearts. But the third time, as

Gandault said on many occasions, pays for all. To the guillotine with the poisoner! Do as I say,

and immortality awaits you!”


“Listen,” murmured Villefaramir in a stifled voice. “My daughter is not guilty… there is no crime

in my house… I will it! What is it to you if I die murdered? And if you were wrong, doctor! If it

were another than my daughter, and you were responsible for her suffering a shameful death, then

beware! In the next life, Luthienne will deny you her favors for all eternity! And I would slay

myself like Turin after the scandal of Glaurond, and my gibbering ghost would scream flames upon

your soul!”


“Very well,” said Dr. Tolliers. “I shall wait. Only, if any in your household fall ill, should

you yourself feel the chalice of death in your bosom like the bad taste of the wargues, do not

call me, for I shall no longer come. I can follow you no longer, unless it be to the foot of the

gallows. Farewell.”


“Doctor, please! What will one say of the death of this poor servant?”


“It is just,” said the physician, and he accompanied Villefaramir back to the salon where the

household were still keeping watch over the remains of Barahier. “Monsieur,” said Dr. Tolliers

aloud to the steuard that all might hear. “The poor Barahier has died of a surfeit of spam.” And

the doctor, without uttering another word or looking at M. de Villefaramir, left accompanied by

the tears and lamentations of all the house.


In the days that followed, dying in Voûte du vautour became almost a vogue, albeit one that many

found highly distasteful. After Dénéthoirtier’s poodle gave up the ghost, the remaining servants

decided that they had had enough, and came to ask permission to resign, for death reigned in that

house. They left therefore, despite all pleas that they should stay, manifesting their regret at

leaving such good masters, especially Mlle. Valartine, so beneficent and gentle.


Villefaramir, at these words, looked at Valartine. She wept. And lo! A strange thing! Through the

emotion that these tears caused him, he glanced also at Mme. de Villefaramir, and him seemed that

a sombre and fugitive smile had passed over her lips, like those meteors that one sees slide

between two storming clouds when Arienne and Tilion overindulge in champagne.


~~~

Meurtrier Morrie knew well the hour when Valartine, assisting the déjeuner of Dénéthoirtier, was

certain of not being disturbed. It was the one hour that he was permitted to speak to her.


“You know, Meurtrier,” said Valartine a few weeks after the trespass of Barahier, “the reason bon

papa wisheth to leave the house and takingeth an appartement henceout?”


“I don’t doubt that it is good.”


“It is excellent. Bon papa maintaineth that the air in this house is insalubrious for me.”


“But finally, it is true that you sufferest, Valartine?” asked Morrie with the liveliest

apprehension.


“Oh mon Érou, one cannot call it suffering; I feel a general malaise, voilà-eth tout.”


“And what treatment do you follow for this unknown malady?”


“I simply taketh a spoonful of the potion one brings my grandfather; when I say a spoonful, I

begannest with one, and have graduallyeth increased it to four. My grandfather says it is a

panacea.” Valartine smiled, but there was something of sadness and suffering in her smile. “It is

very bitter, so bitter that everything I partake of thereafter hath the sameth taste. Just now, I

drank a glass of sugared water of Lorient, and I left half of it, so bitter meseemed.”


Dénéthoirtier palished, and made a sign that he wished to speak, or rather, smoke.


“What a singular bedizziment!” cried Valartine. “Hath the sun stricken mine eyes?”


“There is no sun,” said Morrie even more anxiously. “Nor any weather of this world.”


Dénéthoirtier began urgently blowing smoke-rings. “Seek the glass of water and the jug that was

broken, in Valartine’s chamber they dwell,” he puffed.


“I already drank from the glass,” giggled Valartine. “And Thibaut emptied the jug to make a pond

for his ducks on the chief coffee table.”


The doorbell rang, and Valartine left to admit Mme. de Sacqueville-Danglars and Éowénie, who

gossipped a bit about the scandalous allegations regarding Pérégrin’s fortune that had appeared

in the journals. Valartine found the subject far more amusing than she would habitually have

done, and laughed maniacally when Thibault destroyed the curtains again while singing a

delightful ditty:


“Mademoiselle from Rivendeau, parlez-vous?
“Mademoiselle from Rivendeau, parlez-vous?
“Mademoiselle from Rivendeau, hasn’t been kissed for an aeon or so.
“Inky-dinky parlez-vous!”


“The poor child,” sighed Mme. de Villefaramir as Valartine wended her way back downstairs to

Dénéthoirtier’s apartment. “She worries me seriously, and I would not think it news from Brie if

some grave accident befell her.”


Valartine had descended all the steps save the last three, and heard the sound of Morrie’s voice,

when suddenly a cloud passed before her eyes, and she rather rolled from the top of the three

last steps than descended them.


Morrie bounded, opened the door, and found Valartine stretched out on the floor.


“Are you wounded, Valartine? Oh mon Érou! May Varde have pity!”


“Oh!” replied Valartine with a convulsive movement. “You art quite fearful for a soldier of the

Fighting Uruc-haïs, Meurtrier, who, they say, hast never known fear. Ha ha ha!” And she burst

into a strident and painful laughter; her arms stiffened and twisted, her head reversed on her

fauteuil, and she remained without movement, like a dead thing or a drunken Orc.


The cry of terror that the Valards enchained from the voice of Dénéthoirtier burst forth from his

gaze.


Morrie understood, and hung upon the bell until the one remaining domestic arrove. Valartine was

so pale, so cold, so inanimate, that the fear that kept vigil without cease in that accursed

house, like the purists’ fear that the opera based on Trolquien’s novel would cut out the

vignette with Bombadil, gripped the maid, and she launched herself into the corridor crying for

help.


Forthwith, one heard Villefaramir cry from his cabinet, “What is it?”


Morrie interrogated Dénéthoirtier with a look, and seeing the smoke-rings reply “yes,” hastily

made a sortie through secret ways. Having escaped, he bethought him of words Monte Fato had

spoken to him but two hours before: “Of whatever thing you may have need, Morrie, come to me; I

can do much.” Meurtrier mounted the winged steed the Count had given him, and flew on golden

wings to Champs-Valinorées.


During this time, M. de Villefaramir arrived in a cabriolet at the door of Dr. Tolliers; he rang

with such violence that the concierge came to open with an air of dread fearing that the doctor’s

creditors might have sent out the Loanwraiths. Villefaramir elanced himself up the stairway

without uttering word, heedless of the cries of the concierge, recking nothing of calling-cards

or even reading the Faque. He already pushed or rather broke like the battering-ram of Sauron the

door to the doctor’s cabinet. The doctor was wearing an ornamental waistcoat and smoking a pipe,

and he was murmuring something about consonant shifts in Middle High Low Jick Jack Game Sindarin.


“Ah!” said the doctor. “It is you!”


“Yes, it is I,” said Villefaramir, closing the door behind him, “It is I, Doctor Tolliers, and in

my turn I ask if we are alone. Doctor, my house is a cursed house!”


“Vraiment?” said the doctor coldly. “And what new victim will now die chez vous and accuse us of

weakness before the judgement of Érou and the Valards?”


“Valartine!” cried Villefaramir, sobbing and seizing the doctor by the arm. “It is the turn of

Valartine!”


“Your daughter!” cried the physician, seized with sorrow and astonishment.


“You see that you were wrong,” murmured the steuard. “Come see her, and on her bed of pain beg

her pardon for suspecting her.”


“Every time you have warned me, it has been too late,” said Tolliers. “No matter, I will go. But

let us make haste, monsieur, while the sun shines; with the enemies that strike chez vous, there

is no time to lose, or there will be no dawn for Voûte du vautour.”


And the cabriolet brought Villefaramir and Tolliers back to his mansion at great trot, at the

very moment that Morrie was pounding on the door of Monte Fato.


The Count, like everyone in those troubled times, was in his cabinet, reading a note that

Roguccio had sent him in haste. On the table was a newspaper open to yet another article on the

Count’s oddities, with the headline “Count of Monte Fato Finds Pérégrin Scandal Highly Amusing.”

On hearing Morrie’s arrival announced, the Count rose and admitted him with zeal.


“What is it, Meurtrier?” he asked. “You are pale, and resemble the bonhomme de la lune after he

was expelled from a cabaret in Brie for violating the dress code.”


“Yes, it is true,” said Morrie. “I have come from a house where reigns death, to run to you. I

know not in verity whether it be permitted me to reveal such a secret to ear that heareth, but

fatality impels me, necessity constrains me, Count.


“A few weeks ago, someone died chez the owner of the garden wherein I found myself, and I heard

the master confide his fears and doubts to a physician in an ornamental waistcoat. It was the

second time in a month had death had stricken there, rapid and unforeseen, that one would believe

designed by some exterminating Valard in wrath against the follies of the Dunédains, like the

spell that turned all the cognac in Numéneur into mineral water.


“The doctor replied that the death was not natural, that it must be attributed to poison!”


“Vraiment!” said the Count in the light tone that oft and anon served as a mask in moments of

supreme emotion, to disguise rougeur or pallour or the very attention wherewith he listened.

“Have you really heard such things, Meurtrier?”


“Yes, I have,” replied Morrie. “And a third time death has come into that house, and hath reigned

there so utterly that the servants fled, unmanned, like young gallants who had heard that

Minas-Morgoule was the fashionable place to attend a ball, but well other dance one performed in

that hideous abode, that they durst not waltz there.”


“My dear friend,” said the Count, “you seem to recite a tale we both know by heart. I know the

house whereof you speak as well as you. You say that an exterminating Valard has destined that

house to undergo the Mauvais Goût Unescapable that whelmed the blaspheming Numénoréans; who

says that your supposition is not reality? If it be indeed divine justice that walks in that house,

Meurtrier, turn your head and let the will of Érou be accomplished, as Bilbon did on beholding

the trolls ravishing a rabbit. For it is a family of Féanoirians, under the ban of the Valards

for unspeakable crimes. Lighter were the Kinslaying of Alqualonde than such deeds!”


“But I love her!” cried Morrie, howling with grief. “I love her like a madman, I love her like a

man who would shed every drop of his blood and give the One Ring to the King of the Nazgoules to

spare her, I will not say a tear, but a mild inconvenience; I love Valartine de Villefaramir,

whom one murthers at this moment, understand well! I love her, and I ask Érou, the Valards,

Luthienne, and you how I can save her!”


Monte Fato uttered a savage cry whereof only those can form an idea, who have heard the roar of a

wounded dragon pierced in its one vulnerable spot by a well-aimed arrow. “Unhappy man!” he cried,

wringing his hands. “You love that daughter of an accursed race!”


Never, were it when defending Dieppe-Heaume against the pitiless hate of the Assassins of

Saroumand and their flaming barbs, never, I say, had Meurtrier Morrie seen the genie of terror

shake the foundations of the casinos of Rohan with such sinister fires. He recoiled in dread.

More pregnant than Ungolianne was the silence that followed.


The Count raised his pallid head. “See,” he said, “see how the Valards punish the coldest and

most boastful of men, be he endowed with the Ring of Rings. I who watched, impassible and

slightly curious, the unfolding of that lugubrious tragedy; I who, like Melcoeur belaughing the

fate of Turin, from his stepping on the foot of Finduilette during the New Year’s Ball of

Nargot-Rond to the scandal that extinguished the Hurinids for ever; behold that I, the biter, in

turn feel myself bitten by the serpent that, like Glaurond, is so fashionable yet so deadly, and

bitten in the heart! The hawk under the eagle’s foot, the spider caught in an intolerably boring

soirée!”


Morrie uttered a low moan.


“Enough of such laments,” continued the Count. “Be strong, be full of hope, for I am here for

you.”


Morrie shook his head sadly.


“I command you to hope! Do you understand?” cried the Count, holding aloft his Ring. “Know that I

never lie and never err.”


“Oh Luthienne! Luthienne!” cried Morrie. “I who left her dying!”


Monte Fato placed a hand upon his forehead. What took place in that head full of so many

lugubrious secrets? What speaks to that soul, human yet implacable, and in what dialect of

Elvois? What was the Count; when did he enter the monde, and in what depressing hour would he

leave it? Érou alone, perhaps, knows!


“Meurtrier,” he said, “return tranquilly chez vous, and do not make a move; I will give you

news.”


“You!” cried Morrie. “Mon Érou! Mon Érou! You terrify me, Count, with your sang-froid! Are you

one of the Valards, do you have power over death? Are you no longer a man, or even a hobbite?”


And the entire room was filled with darkness, save that a light emanated from the Count’s Ring.

And the young man, who recoiled not before the fan fiction that was the deadliest weapon of the

wargues, recoiled before the Count of Monte Fato with an unspeakable terror.


“Go now,” said the Count with a smile so melancholy that Morrie felt tears pricking in his eyes.

“I can do much for you.”


~~~

At the return of Villefaramir and Tolliers, Valartine was still fainted, and the physician

examined her with a care redoubled by his knowledge of the secret. Villefaramir and Dénéthoirtier

were paler yet than Valartine, and the potato that was Dénéthoirtier evinced more anxiety than

Villefaramir himself.


Finally, the doctor slowly uttered the words: “She lives yet.”


At this moment Tolliers met the eye of Dénéthoirtier, whose eye sparkled of a joy so

extraordinary, of a thought so rich and fecund, that the physician marvelled.


“Monsieur,” he said to Villefaramir, “bring me athélas, or, if you have none, then in the name of

the doctor go and find some vieux bonhomme with less legal erudition and more bon sens who keeps

some in his house!”


As soon as Villefaramir had left, Dr. Tolliers asked Dénéthoirtier, “You wish to say something to

me?”


“Yes,” puffed the tuber.


“We have little time to spare. Did you foresee the accident that befell Valartine today?”


“Yes.”


“Do you know how Barahier died?”


“Yes.”


“Did the same hand slay him, that has sought Valartine’s death?”


“Yes.”


“She too will succumb?”


“No!” puffed the tuber triumphantly. And he blew a smoke-ring in the direction of a bottle

containing a potion that one brought him every day.


“Then … you have had the idea of preparing her for the poison, habituating her to it little by

little?”


“Yes, yes, yes,” said Dénéthoirtier, enchanted at being understood.


At this moment, Villefaramir returned with the athélas. “You requested athélas, or feuil du roi

as we monarchists call it, or…”


“I care not whether you name it feuil du roi, athélas, sharcolat, or vodka-trotsky,” said the

doctor.


Dr. Tolliers led the way to Valartine’s chamber. At the moment that the physician returned chez

Valartine, an Eldarin priest, of severe demeanour and calm and decided speech, rented the house

next to Villefaramir’s mansion. This new tenant’s name was abbé Glorfindoni.