I struck a light, saw that it was shortly past midnight, dressed and went downstairs. Martin Plomb was talking to a group of neighbors. His wife was standing in the doorway, wrapped in a quilted dressing gown.
“What has happened?” I asked her.
“We are worried about Philippe,” she replied. “He went for a walk this afternoon down in the valley, and he hasn’t returned. They are going to search for him. We thought nothing of it that he didn’t come back for dinner, but it is now past midnight and we are afraid he may have had an accident.”
Already the men, in groups of twos and threes, some with old-fashioned farm lanterns, a few with electric flash lights, were starting down the mountainside. I joined Martin Plomb, who was at the gate instructing them to go this way or that and to keep in touch with one another by shouting. He himself was going to search upward on the other slope, toward the Grotte des Fées where Philippe sometimes climbed, fearing that he might have fallen down a ravine. I went along with him...
It was just before dawn, after hours of fruitless search, that we heard a different shouting from the head of the valley. I could not distinguish the words, but Martin immediately said, “They’ve found him.” We worked our way across and climbed toward the road along which we now could see lights flashing, returning toward Les Baux.
They were carrying Philippe on an improvised litter made with two saplings and pine branches interwoven. He was conscious; his eyes were open; but he seemed to be in a stupor and had been unable, they said, to explain what had happened to him. No bones were broken nor had he suffered any other serious physical injury, but his clothes were badly torn, particularly the knees of his knickerbockers, which were ripped and abraded as if he had been dragging himself along on hands and knees.
They all agreed as to what had probably happened: he had been climbing bareheaded among the rocks in the heat of the late afternoon and had suffered an insolation, a prostrating but not fatal sunstroke, had partially recovered and in seeking help, still delirious, had lost his way. He should be all right in a day or two, Martin said. They would have a doctor up from Arles in the morning.
Of course I had thought more than once that night about Mère Tirelou and had considered mentioning the matter to Martin Plomb, but this explanation was so reasonable, adequate, natural, that it seemed to me absurd now to view the episode as anything more than a pure coincidence, so I said nothing.
It was dawn when we reached Les Baux and got Philippe to bed, and when I awoke toward noon the doctor had already come and gone.
“He had a bad stroke,” Martin told me. “His head is clear — but there’s still something the matter that the doctor couldn’t understand. When Philippe tried to get up from the bed, he couldn’t walk. Yet his legs aren’t in jured. It’s queer. We are afraid it may be something like paralysis. He seemed to twist and stumble over his own feet.”
Sharply, as he spoke, the belated certainty came to me that here was an end to all coincidence; that I had been wrong; that something as sinister and darkly evil as I had ever known in the jungle had been happening here in Les Baux under my very eyes.
“Martin,” I said, “something occurred yesterday afternoon which you do not know about. I am not prepared to say yet what it was. But I must see Philippe at once and talk with him. You say his mind is perfectly clear?”
“But assuredly,” said Martin, puzzled; “though I can’t understand what you’re driving at. He will want to see you.”
Philippe was in bed. He looked depressed rather than ill, and was certainly in complete possession of his senses.
I said, “Philippe, Martin tells me there is something wrong with your legs. I think perhaps I can tell you what—”
“Why, were you ever a doctor?” he interrupted eagerly. “If we’d known that! The fellow who came up from Arles didn’t seem to be much good.”
“No, I’m not a doctor. But I’m not sure this is a doctor’s job. I want to tell you something. You know where my room is. I happened to be at the window yesterday and I heard and saw everything that occurred between you and Mere Tirelou. Haven’t you thought that there may be some connection?”
He stared at me in surprise, and also with a sort of angry disappointment.
“Tiens!” he said. “You, an educated modern American, you believe in that fantastic foolishness! Why, I came from these mountains, I was born here, and yet I know that stuff is silly nonsense. I thought about it, of course, but it doesn’t make any sense. How could it?”
“Maybe it doesn’t,” I said, “but just the same will you please tell me as well as you can remember what happened to you yesterday afternoon and last night?”
“Confound it, you know what happened. I had a stroke. And it has left me like this. Lord, I’d rather be dead than crippled or helpless.”
He lapsed into somber silence. But I had heard enough. There are people who have lain paralyzed in bed for life through no organic ailment but only because they believed they couldn’t arise and walk. If I helped him now, it could be only by overwhelming proof. My business was with Mere Tirelou...
Neither the old woman nor her granddaughter had been near the hotel that morning. I climbed the winding cobbled street and tapped at their door. Presently Maguelonne reluctantly opened. I made no effort to enter, but said:
“I’ve come to see Mere Tirelou — about a serious matter.”
She looked at me with worried, guarded eyes, as if uncertain how to answer, and finally said, “She is not here. She went over the mountain last night, beyond Saint-Remy. She will be gone several days.” Sensing my doubt, she added defensively, almost pleadingly, “You can come in and see if you wish. She is not here.”
The girl was obviously in great distress and I realized that she knew or suspected why I had come.
“In that case,” I said, “we must talk. Shall it be like this, or would you prefer to have me come in?”
She motioned me inside.
I said, “Ma’m’selle Maguelonne, I beg you to be honest with me. You know what people say about your grandmother — and there are some who say it also about you. I hope that part isn’t true. But your grandmother has done something which I am determined to have undone. I am so certain of what I know that if necessary I am going to take Martin Plomb into my confidence and go with him to the police at Arles. Ma’m’selle, I feel that you know exactly what I am talking about. It’s Philippe — and I want to ask if you—”
“No, no, no!” the girl cried pitifully, interrupting. “I had nothing to do with it! I tried to stop it! I warned him! I begged him not to see me any more. I told him that something dreadful would happen, but he only laughed at me. He doesn’t believe in such things. I have helped my grandmother in other things — she has forced me to help her — but never in anything so wicked as this — and against Philippe! No, no, Monsieur, never would I help in such a thing, not even if she—” Suddenly the girl began to sob, “Oh, what ought I to do?”
I said, “Do you mean there is something you could do?”
“I am afraid,” she said — “afraid of my grandmother. Oh, if you knew! I don’t dare go in there — and besides, the door is locked — and it may not be in there.”
“Maguelonne,” I said gently, “I think you care for Philippe, and I think he cares for you. Do you know that he has lost the use of his legs?”