The Power of Darkness | Page 4

did move, of course it would have been because it was alive,
and I ought to have been glad, because the man was my friend. But all
the same, if he had moved I should have gone mad.'
'Yes,' said Edward, 'that's just exactly it.'
Vincent called for a second absinthe.
'But a dead body's different to waxworks,' he said. 'I can't understand
anyone being frightened of them.'
'Oh, can't you?' The contempt in the other's tone stung him. 'I bet you
wouldn't spend a night alone in that place.'
'I bet you five pounds I do!'
'Done,' said Edward, briskly. 'At least, I would if you'd got five
pounds.'
'But I have. I'm simply rolling. I've sold my Dejanira; didn't you know?
I shall win your money though, anyway. But you couldn't do it, old man.
I suppose you'll never outgrow that childish scare.'
'You might shut up about that,' said Edward, shortly.
'Oh, it's nothing to be ashamed of; some women are afraid of mice or
spiders. I say, does Rose know you're a coward?'
'Vincent!'

'No offence, old boy. One may as well call a spade a spade. Of course,
you've got tons of moral courage and all that. But you are afraid of the
dark--and waxworks!'
'Are you trying to quarrel with me?'
'Heaven in its mercy forbid. But I bet you wouldn't spend a night in the
Musée Grévin and keep your senses.'
'What's the stake?'
'Anything you like.'
'Make it that if I do you'll never speak to Rose again, and, what's more,
that you'll never speak to me,' said Edward, white-hot, knocking down
a chair as he rose.
'Done,' said Vincent. 'But you'll never do it. Keep your hair on. Besides,
you're off home.'
'I shall be back in ten days. I'll do it then,' said Edward, and was off
before the other could answer.
Then Vincent, left alone, sat still, and over his third absinthe
remembered how, before she had known Edward, Rose had smiled on
him more than the others, he thought. He thought of her wide, lovely
eyes, her wild-rose cheeks, the scented curves of her hair, and then and
there the devil entered into him.
In ten days Edward would undoubtedly try to win his wager. He would
try to spend the night in the Musée Grévin. Perhaps something could be
arranged before that. If one knew the place thoroughly! A little scare
would serve Edward right for being the man to whom that last glance
of Rose's had been given.
Vincent dined lightly, but with conscientious care--and as he dined he
thought. Something might be done by tying a string to one of the
figures and making it move when Edward was going through that

impossible night among the effigies that are so like life--so like death.
Something that was not the devil said:
'You may frighten him out of his wits.'
And the devil answered: 'Nonsense; do him good. He oughtn't to be
such a schoolgirl.'
Anyway, the five pounds might as well be won tonight as any other
night. He would take a greatcoat, sleep sound in the place of horrors,
and the people who opened it in the morning to sweep and dust would
bear witness that he had passed the night there. He thought he might
trust to the French love of a sporting wager to keep him from any
bother with the authorities.
So he went in among the crowd, and looked about among the
waxworks for a place to hide in. He was not in the least afraid of these
lifeless images. He had always been able to control his nervous tremors
in his time. He was not even afraid of being frightened, which, by the
way, is the worst fear of all.
As one looks at the room of the poor little Dauphin one sees a door to
the left. It opens out of the room on to blackness. There were few
people in the gallery. Vincent watched, and, in a moment when he was
alone, stepped over the barrier and through this door. A narrow passage
ran round behind the wall of the room. Here he hid, and when the
gallery was deserted he looked out across the body of little Capet to the
gaoler at the window. There was a soldier at the window too. Vincent
amused himself with the fancy that this soldier might walk round the
passage at the back of the room and tap him on the shoulder in the
darkness. Only the head and shoulders of the soldier and the gaoler
showed, so, of course, they could not walk, even if they were
something that was not waxwork.
Presently he himself went along the passage and round to the window
where they were. He found that they