MISTER MYSTERY RESPONDS

"Do you know how to diaper babies?" Was the first thing Papus told me when he rushed out of Madame Verdurin's salon. I had to ask him to repeat the question several times because I thought I had not heard correctly. When I finally made sure I had understood the question correctly, I could not help but notice his belly. When I saw him for the first time several weeks ago, he already had a prominent belly, but now I realized that that belly had been increasing progressively in size. A shudder ran through my spine. "Are you going to have a child?" I asked, stunned. And I quickly added: “Well, I warn you, it's not my son”. Then he began to laugh out loud while I didn’t take my eyes off her belly, which, with every laugh, rose and fell as if it were alive or enclosed a living being inside it. When he finished laughing, he grabbed me by the arm and, avoiding the carriages that passed through the boulevard, made me enter the building from which he had just left. He...

Once the statutes of the new Rosicrucian Order were concluded, I returned to my physical body which, to my surprise, had moved from where I left it a week before. In fact, I found it floating adrift in the Atlantic Ocean near the port of Le Havre. Of course, I stopped in my tracks and refrained from entering it. First, because I did not want to get my dress suit wet. Second, because I can't swim and, instead, my body seemed to float without difficulty. If I had entered it, surely I would have sunk. I had to rent a rowboat in Le Havre to rescue my body from the water. Only when I had it on board, did I decide to enter it. Naturally, from the beginning I suspected the Verdurins. And, indeed, when I got home, I found the door forced. Surely, they would have seized my body and thrown it into the Seine under the cover of night. Oh, but now I had powerful friends who could help me neutralize the Verdurins! Immediately I got in touch with Papus, who agreed to go personally to Madame Verdu...

I’ve been strolling all the morning through the Luxembourg Gardens, going over the events of the last days in my head. In an ironic twist of fate, the accident that was to prevent me from being initiated into the mysteries of Parisian high society, was going to become the springboard that would give me access to them. The event will be next Saturday at eleven p.m. in the castle that the Marquis Stanislas de Guaita has outside of Paris. On the one hand, I long for that day to come. On the other hand, I fear it. I’ve read too many feuilletons about secret sects that perform human sacrifices in order to obtain a good supply of blood to fill the inkwells of their initiates. However, all things considered, my fears are unfounded since I never have my blood on me when I leave: it stays at home keeping company to my physical body. And to make sure of that, I have turned away from the busy path and made a small cut in my hand with my penknife. Indeed, not a drop of blood has come out. But, whi...

All day long I've been an absolute bundle of nerves pondering over the way Mme de Villeparisis sets out to solve my problem. Does she intend to talk to the Verdurins? Threaten them? Use more drastic methods, such as torture?! ... Maybe she has got some compromising information with which to blackmail them? Rumor has it that Monsieur Verdurin has secret meetings with a lettuce at the Hotel Continental... Maybe Mme de Villeparisis has obtained incriminating evidence. I don’t remember who told me that the hotel manager is related to her. Maybe he has seen him kissing the lettuce secretly ... Who knows. I won’t find out for sure until eight o'clock. In the meantime, the best I can do is distract myself. So I have randomly taken a book from the Chinese bookcase and I have tried to guess its plot by carefully scrutinizing its characters. In this way I have spent the rest of the day. I have discovered that you don’t need to know Chinese to understand Chinese writing. It is enough to h...

Today I went back with the imagination to Luxembourg Gardens. And although I have been very careful not to get into trouble, again an incident has confirmed my suspicions. There is no longer any doubt: Madame and Monsieur Verdurin still resent me because of the misunderstanding with the shotgun. Before the incident everything was going well. I have even met Madame de Villeparisis who has complained that I didn’t show myself at her salon lately. I have informed her of my convalescent state and of the fact that I can’t get out of home currently except with my imagination, as at that precise moment. And then she has made me promise that, even with my imagination, I would not stop going to her Thursday soirees. Then I’ve felt compelled to warn her of the possibility that I would make a scene due to the interferences my imagination was suffering at the hands of the Verdurins. She was outraged about it and, in exchange for my promise to come to her salon weekly, she promised to intervene in ...

Since, while convalescing, I can not move to the Luxembourg Gardens, I close my eyes and move there with my imagination. The transfer is quick because the Gardens are a stone's throw from the rue de Medicis where I live. Then I start the daily walk through the well-known paths and alleys. One day, when I was walking near the bandstand, I found a handkerchief. It smelled of roses. Surely some lady would have dropped it as though by chance, with the intention that the gentleman who came after her would pick it up and returned it to her, giving thus him a pretext to start a conversation. But the gentleman had passed by. That handkerchief, I reflected, was a symbol of what could have been but won't be. Suddenly, I heard a commotion. A group of people shouted and gesticulated with indignant attitude. I approached and, as I did it, all eyes turned towards me. Right in the center of the group, there was a nursemaid with the face of Madame Verdurin. She was pointing at me shouting hyst...