In a Glass Darkly II. The Room in the Dragon Volant

After some agreeable conversation I was glad to observe that he preferred silence, and was satisfi ed with the rôle of listener, as I and Monsieur Carmaignac chatted; and he seat­ed himself, with extraordinary caution and indecision, upon a bench, beside us, and seemed very soon to fi nd a diffi culty in keeping his eyes open.

“My servant,” I said, “gave me a confused account of some occurrences, and, as well as I recollect, he described the same persons – I mean a returned French nobleman and a Rus­sian gentleman. But he made the whole story so marvel­ous – I mean in the supernatural sense – that, I confess, I did not believe a word of it.”

“Certainly. It is a spacious, paneled bedroom, up one pair of stairs, in the back of the house, and at the extreme right, as you look from its windows.”

“No, they did not die – they disappeared very oddly. I’ll tell you the particulars – I happen to know them exactly, because I made an offi cial visit, on the fi rst occasion, to the house, to collect evidence; and although I did not go down there, upon the second, the papers came before me, and I dictated the of­fi cial letter dispatched to the relations of the people who had disappeared; they had applied to the government to investi­gate the affair. We had letters from the same relations more than two years later, from which we learned that the missing men had never turned up.”

sold a large portion of his property before the revolution had proceeded so far as to render that next to impossible, and re­tired with a large sum. He brought with him about half a mil­lion of francs, the greater part of which he invested in the French funds; a much larger sum remained in Austrian land and securities. You will observe then that this gentleman was rich, and there was no allegation of his having lost money, or being in any way embarrassed. You see?”

“Certainly not,” I agreed.

“Early in the summer of 1811 he got an order permitting him to copy a picture in one of these salons, and came down here, to Versailles, for the purpose. His work was getting on slowly. After a time he left his hotel here, and went, by way of change, to the Dragon Volant; there he took, by special choice, the bedroom which has fallen to you by chance. From this time, It appeared, he painted little; and seldom visited his apartments in Paris. One night he saw the host of the Dragon Volant, and told him that he was going into Paris, to remain for a day or two, on very particular business; that his servant would accompany him, but that he would retain his apart-

“Well, Monsieur, as soon as they were approaching his lodgings, he stopped the carriage on a sudden, told his servant that he had changed his mind; that he would sleep elsewhere that night, that he had very particular business in the north of France, not far from Rouen, that he would set out before daylight on his journey, and return in a fortnight. He called a fi acre, took in his hand a leather bag which, the servant said, was just large enough to hold a few shirts and a coat, but that It was enormously heavy, as he could testify, for he held It in his hand, while his master took out his purse to count thirty­six Napoleons, for which the servant was to account when he should return. He then sent him on, in the carriage; and he, with the bag I have mentioned, got into the fi acre. Up to that, you see, the narrative is quite clear.”

which had puzzled the servant by its weight, contained, no doubt, a large sum in gold. Will Monsieur try my snuff?”

“A reward was offered,” he continued, “when the inquiry was instituted, for any information tending to throw a light upon the mystery, which might be afforded by the driver of the fi acre ‘employed on the night of’ (so-and-so), ‘at about the hour of half-past ten, by a gentleman, with a black-leather bag-bag in his hand, who descended from a private carriage, and gave his servant some money, which he counted twice over.’ About a hundred-and-fi fty drivers applied, but not one of them was the right man. We did, however, elicIt a curious and unexpected piece of evidence in quite another quarter. What a racket that plaguey harlequin makes with his sword!”

“I regret very much, Monsieur, my not being able at pres­ent to relate to you the other case, that of another tenant of the very same room – a case more mysterious and sinister than the last – and which occurred in the autumn of the same year.”

The sight of lonely nature at such an hour, acts like a sud­den sedative. The madness and guilt of my pursuIt struck me with a momentary compunction and horror. I wished I had never entered the labyrinth which was leading me, I knew not whither. It was too late to think of that now; but the bitter was already stealing into my cup; and vague anticipations lay, for a few minutes, heavy on my heart. It would not have taken much to make me disclose my unmanly state of mind to my lively friend Alfred Ogle, nor even to the milder ridicule of the agreeable Tom Whistlewick.

I knew, therefore, I should have ample time for my mysteri­ous excursion without exciting curiosity by being shut out.

You may guess with what a strange interest and swelling of the heart I gazed on the unknown scene of my coming ad­venture.