"My dear spirit," said the Comte, "the castle was destroyed in 1795, at the time of the disaster of Quiberon. All those who took part in that vandalism are long dead. So how could one take vengeance on them?"
"Not this house. My house: My house of stone. My great stone."
"Stone?" said the Comtesse. "Do you by chance mean the Menhir of Locmelon?"
"Yes. Yes. Restore my house. Take vengeance on those who overthrew it. Vengeance! Vengeance!"
The Comte ran puzzled eyes around the circle, lingering for a fraction of a second on me and on Max Burgdorf. "Who, then, destroyed your stone?"
"Barbarians. Barbarians did it."
"Barbarians? My good phantom, the last barbarians we had here were the Vikings, chased out by Alain Barbe-Torte in the year 939."
"Not true. Barbarians here, now."
"Hm," said the Comte. "He must mean the destruction of the menhir in the late war. We French say the Germans did it, while the Germans say the Americans did it. We have no Germans here. Monsieur Newbury, were you by chance in the American Air Force?"
"No, Monsieur, I was not. I was in the army, but I had a desk job and never got near Brittany."
"You see, Monsieur revenant," said the Comte to the air, "nobody here could have had anything to do with the unfortunate overthrow of your megalith."
"Not so. Two barbarians here. One in army that did it. Vengeance on him. Vengeance coming. You shall see ..."
Angèle broke into a frenzy of scribbling. The tension in the darkened room rose to a silent scream. The Comte said:
"But, my dear ghost, I have explained—"
"No," wrote Angèle. "One barbarian army missed my house; one hit it. I know which is which."
"Excuse me one moment," said Max Burgdorf. He got up and quietly left the room.
"Well, then," said the Comte, "which is which?"
The spirit writing went off into a sputter of illegible Dark Age Breton. Then the top sheet of Angèle's pad was used up. The Comte reached over her shoulder and tore off the sheet. Angèle began writing again.
"You have wrong," wrote Angèle. "Man with beard was in barbarian army. He shall die. Other barbarian warned. Warned yesterday. At Morzon. He shall help with [illegible]."
"But this—" began the Comte. He broke off, turned his head, and listened. There were footsteps outside in the hall. Saying "Pardon me one moment, please," the Comte rose, went to the door, and opened it. The rest of us, except Angèle, got up and followed him.
Max Burgdorf, suitcase in hand, was opening the huge, carved front door of the chateau. The Comte said sharply:
"Max! What are you doing? Where are you going so suddenly?"
"That is my affair," said Burgdorf.
"Oh, no, it is not! Are you leaving us, then?" I am.
"But why? Where are you going? What of Angèle?"
The Comte caught Burgdorf s arm just as the man was going out the door and turned him around. Burgdorf shook off the detaining hand.
"I warn you, do not try to stop me!" he said.
The Comte persisted: "Max! As a man of honor, I demand an explanation—"
"You will learn in due course," snapped Burgdorf over his shoulder, striding out towards his car.
Just then another car drove into the courtyard, and four men piled out. Three wore the khaki of the local police and carried guns of various kinds. The fourth, in civilian clothes, shouted: "Halte-la, Monsieur von Zeitz!"
Burgdorf wheeled, drawing a revolver. Before he could shoot, a rifle cracked. The revolver spun away, and Burgdorf, dropping his suitcase, grasped his arm with a yelp of pain.
"Helmuth von Zeitz, alias Max Burgdorf," said the man in civilian clothes, "I arrest you in the name of the Republic!"
Burgdorf—or von Zeitz—offered no more resistance. The Comte said: "Monsieur the Commissionnaire, I pray you, have the goodness to explain!"
"Monsieur le Comte," said the official, "this man is wanted for war crimes. He was the officer commanding the S.S. detachment, assigned to the massacre of Hennebont. I cannot imagine why the fool returned to the scene of his crime, but that is the fact. His application for citizenship betrayed him, when the naturalization bureau investigated it."
Angèle, who had quietly appeared in the doorway, gave a shriek. "It is him! I know him now, in spite of the beard! He is the one who saved my life!"
"While depriving hundreds of our compatriots of theirs," said the Comte. In the light of the lamps flanking the entrance, the Comte looked suddenly older and grim.
Burgdorf von Zeitz cried out: "I meant to make it up to you, Angèle! I did not mean to do it! I was only a junior officer, following orders! When you ran away, a little twelve-year-old girl, I told myself, I must come back some day and—" Tears on his cheeks shone in the lamplight.
"Come along, Monsieur," said the Commissionaire. "We must get you to the hospital, to repair that broken arm. It would not do to have you sneeze into the basket with your arm in a sling."
They hustled the suspect into the car and roared off. Angèle burst into tears. Frédéric Dion put his arms around her.
When the police car had gone, we straggled back into the chateau. Angèle disappeared with her sister. I asked the Comte:
"What will they do to him?"
The Comte looked at me with a slight smile and brought the edge of his palm sharply against his neck. The French are not a sentimental folk.
For the next half-hour, the Comte and Tanguy were busy reassuring the other guests, who had popped out of their rooms at the shot. At last we gathered again in the parlor— the Comte, Tanguy, Dion, Denise, and I. The Comte poured brandy all around. He said:
"Let us thank le bon Dieu that it was not worse and that it is now over."
"Oh," said Denise, "are you sure that it is, Monsieur le Comte? Your Blaise de Ogmas, or whatever he calls himself, still demands the restoration of his menhir. Otherwise ..."
"I understand," said the Comte. "This calls for thought."
"Henri," said Frédéric Dion, "you are aware that Angèle and I are old friends, and that before this self-styled Swiss appeared, she was inclined to me. Have I your permission to pay my addresses to her again?"
"Certainement—but wait an instant. The specter wishes his menhir restored, or he will ruin us by driving away our guests with knocks and rattles. So, if you share equally with me the cost of reerecting the megalith, you may pay court to Angèle with my blessing. As for Monsieur Newbury, I am sure that you, Monsieur, will, for the sake of the ancient friendship between our countries, donate to the project your engineering skill. Are we in accord? Bien."
The Comte might be a charming fellow, but that did not stop him from keeping a sharp French eye on his own interest.
I don't know how Frédéric Dion made out with his suit. He seemed a nice young man, so I hope he married Angèle and lived with her happily ever after.
But that is how, a week later, we were all standing in our rough clothes in the field of the Menhir of Locmelon, watching the crane on the back of Monsieur Lebraz's wrecking truck slowly hoist the last piece of the stone into the air. I had placed the cable around the fragment, hoping that nobody noticed my inexperience as a rigger.
When this piece was poised over the monument, I climbed the ladder. Denise handed me up a trowel and a bucket, and I slathered mortar on the broken surface of the stone. Then Lebraz lowered the topmost fragment, a centimeter at a time, until I could guide it into place. We pulled the cable out from between the stones. Surplus mortar was squeezed out of the join in gobs, which I scraped off with my trowel. At last, the sinister visage carved in the top of the monolith glowered down upon us, as it had for forty centuries before its overthrow.