The Crimson Circle

It is a ponderable fact that had not the 29th of a certain September been the anniversary of Monsieur Victor Pallion’s birth, there would have been no Crimson Circle mystery; a dozen men, now dead, would in all probability be alive, and Thalia Drummond would certainly never have been described by a dispassionate inspector of police as “a thief and the associate of thieves.”

M. Pallion entertained his three assistants to dinner at the Coq d’Or in the city of Toulouse, and the proceedings were both joyous and amiable. At three o’clock in the morning it dawned upon M. Pallion that the occasion of his visit to Toulouse was the execution of an English malefactor named Lightman.

“My children,” he said gravely but unsteadily, “it is three hours and the ‘red lady’ has yet to be assembled!”

So they adjourned to the place before the prison where a trolley containing the essential parts of the guillotine had been waiting since midnight, and with a skill born of practice they erected the grisly thing, and fitted the knife into its proper slots.

But even mechanical skill is not proof against the heady wines of southern France, and when they tried the knife it did not fall truly.

“I will arrange this,” said M. Pallion, and drove a nail into the frame at exactly the place where a nail should not have been driven.

But he was getting flurried, for the soldiers had marched on to the ground.…

Four hours later (it was light enough for an enterprising photographer to snap the prisoner close at hand), they marched a man from the prison.…

“Courage!” murmured M. Pallion.

“Go to hell!” said the victim, now lying strapped upon the plank.

M. Pallion pulled a handle and the knife fell… but only as far as the nail.

Three times he tried and three times he failed, and then the indignant spectators broke through the military cordon, and the prisoner was taken back into the gaol.

Eleven years later that nail killed many people.

Chapter I. The Initiation

It was an hour when most respectable citizens were preparing for bed, and the upper windows of the big, old-fashioned houses in the square showed patches of light, against which the outlines of the leafless trees, bending and swaying under the urge of the gale, were silhouetted. A cold wind was sweeping up the river, and its outriders penetrated icily into the remotest and most sheltered places.

The man who paced slowly by the high iron railings shivered, though he was warmly clad, for the unknown had chosen a rendezvous which seemed exposed to the full blast of the storm.

The débris of the dead autumn whirled in fantastic circles about his feet, the twigs and leaves came rattling down from the trees which threw their long gaunt arms above him, and he looked enviously at the cheerful glow in the windows of a house where, did he but knock, he would be received as a welcome guest.

The hour of eleven boomed out from a nearby clock, and the last stroke was reverberating when a car came swiftly and noiselessly into the square and halted abreast of him. The two head-lamps burned dimly. Within the closed body there was no spark of light. After a moment’s hesitation the waiting man stepped to the car, opened the door, and got in. He could only guess the outline of the driver’s figure in the seat ahead, and he felt a curious thumping of heart as he realised the terrific importance of the step he had taken. The car did not move, and the man in the driver’s seat remained motionless. For a little time there was a dead silence, which was broken by the passenger.