Page 125 - DENG202_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_III

Elective English—III

Notes Every man and woman in the house was secured—the “Old Soldier” the first. Then I identified
the bed in which I had slept, and then we went into the room above. No object that was at all
extraordinary appeared in any part of it. The Sub-prefect looked round the place, commanded
everybody to be silent, stamped twice on the floor, called for a candle, looked attentively at the
spot he had stamped on, and ordered the flooring there to be careful taken up. This was done in
no time. Lights were produced, and we saw a deep raftered cavity between the floor of this room
and the ceiling of the room beneath. Through a cavity there ran perpendicularly a sort of case of
iron thickly greased; and inside the case appeared the screw, which communicated with the
bed-top below. Extra lengths of screw, freshly oiled; levers covered with felt; all the complete
upper works of a heavy press—constructed with infernal ingenuity so as to join the fixtures
below, and when taken to pieces again, to go into the smallest possible compass—were next
discovered and pulled out on the floor. After some little difficulty, the Sub-prefect succeeded in
putting the machinery together, and, leaving his men to work it, descended with me to the
bedroom. The smothering canopy was then lowered, but not so noiselessly, as I had seen it
lowered. When I mentioned this to the Sub-prefect, his answer, simple as it was, had a terrible
significance. “My men,” said he, “are working down the bed-top for the first time—the men
whose money you won were in better practice.”
We left the house in the sole possession of two police agents—every one of the inmates being
removed to prison on the spot. The Sub-prefect, after taking down my “process verbal” in his
office, returned with me to my hotel to get my passport. “Do you think,” I asked, as I gave it to
him, “that any men have really been smothered in that bed, as they tried to smother me?”
“I have seen dozens of drowned men laid out at the Morgue,” answered the Sub-prefect, “in
whose pocket-books were found letters stating that they had committed suicide in the Seine,
because they had lost everything at the gaming table. Do I know how many of those men
entered the same gambling-house that you entered? Won as you won? Took that bed as you took
it? Slept in it? Were smothered in it? In addition, were privately thrown into the river, with a
letter of explanation written by the murderers and placed in their pocket books? No man can say
how many or how few have suffered the fate from which you have escaped. The people of the
gambling-house kept their bedstead machinery a secret from us—even from the police!
The dead kept the rest of the secret for them. Goodnight, or rather good-morning, Monsieur
Faulkner! Be at my office again at nine o’clock—in the meantime, au revoir!”

The rest of my story is soon told. I was examined and re-examined; the gambling-house was
strictly searched all through from top to bottom; the prisoners were separately interrogated;
and two of the less guilty among them made a confession. I discovered that the Old Soldier was
the master of the gambling-house—justice discovered that he had been drummed out of the
army as a vagabond years ago; that he had been guilty of all sorts of villainies since; that he was
in possession of stolen property, which the owners identified; and that he, the croupier, another
accomplice, and the woman who had made my cup of coffee, were all in the secret of the
bedstead. There appeared some reason to doubt whether the inferior persons attached to the
house knew anything of the suffocating machinery; and they received the benefit of that doubt,
by being treated simply as thieves and vagabonds. As for the Old Soldier and his two head
myrmidons, they went to the galleys; the woman who had drugged my coffee was imprisoned
for I forget how many years; the regular attendants at the gambling-house were considered
“suspicious” and placed under “surveillance”; and I became, for one whole week (which is a
long time) the head “lion” in Parisian society. My adventure was dramatized by three illustrious
playmakers, but never saw theatrical daylight; for the censorship forbade the introduction on
the stage of a correct copy of the gambling-house bedstead.
One good result was produced by my adventure, which any censorship must have approved:
it cured me of ever again trying “Rouge et Noir” as an amusement. The sight of a green cloth,
with asks of cards and heaps of money on it, will henceforth be forever associated in my mind
with the sight of a bed canopy descending to suffocate me in the silence and darkness of the

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