EIGHT FROM NINE LEAVES ONE
Notwithstanding my friendly relations with Lupin and the many
flattering proofs of his confidence which he has given me, there is
one thing which I have never been quite able to fathom, and that is
the organization of his gang.
The existence of the gang is an undoubted fact. Certain adventures
can be explained only by countless acts of devotion, invincible
efforts of energy and powerful cases of complicity, representing so
many forces which all obey one mighty will. But how is this will
exerted? Through what intermediaries, through what subordinates?
That is what I do not know. Lupin keeps his secret; and the secrets
which Lupin chooses to keep are, so to speak, impenetrable.
The only supposition which I can allow myself to make is that
this gang, which, in my opinion, is very limited in numbers and
therefore all the more formidable, is completed and extended
indefinitely by the addition of independent units, provisional
associates, picked up in every class of society and in every
country of the world, who are the executive agents of an authority
with which, in many cases, they are not even acquainted. The
companions, the initiates, the faithful adherents--men who play the
leading parts under the direct command of Lupin--move to and fro
between these secondary agents and the master.
Gilbert and Vaucheray evidently belonged to the main gang. And that
is why the law showed itself so implacable in their regard. For the
first time, it held accomplices of Lupin in its clutches--declared,
undisputed accomplices--and those accomplices had committed a
murder. If the murder was premeditated, if the accusation of
deliberate homicide could be supported by substantial proofs,
it meant the scaffold. Now there was, at the very least, one
self-evident proof, the cry for assistance which Léonard had sent
over the telephone a few minutes before his death:
“Help!... Murder!... I shall be killed!...”
The desperate appeal had been heard by two men, the operator on
duty and one of his fellow-clerks, who swore to it positively. And
it was in consequence of this appeal that the commissary of police,
who was at once informed, had proceeded to the Villa Marie-Thérèse,
escorted by his men and a number of soldiers off duty.
Lupin had a very clear notion of the danger from the first. The
fierce struggle in which he had engaged against society was
entering upon a new and terrible phase. His luck was turning.
It was no longer a matter of attacking others, but of defending
himself and saving the heads of his two companions.
A little memorandum, which I have copied from one of the note-books
in which he often jots down a summary of the situations that
perplex him, will show us the workings of his brain:
“One definite fact, to begin with, is that Gilbert and Vaucheray
humbugged me. The Enghien expedition, undertaken ostensibly with
the object of robbing the Villa Marie-Thérèse, had a secret
purpose. This purpose obsessed their minds throughout the
operations; and what they were looking for, under the furniture
and in the cupboards, was one thing and one thing alone: the
crystal stopper. Therefore, if I want to see clear ahead, I must
first of all know what this means. It is certain that, for some
hidden reason, that mysterious piece of glass possesses an
incalculable value in their eyes. And not only in theirs, for,
last night, some one was bold enough and clever enough to enter
my flat and steal the object in question from me.”
This theft of which he was the victim puzzled Lupin curiously.
Two problems, both equally difficult of solution, presented
themselves to his mind. First, who was the mysterious visitor?
Gilbert, who enjoyed his entire confidence and acted as his private
secretary, was the only one who knew of the retreat in the Rue
Matignon. Now Gilbert was in prison. Was Lupin to suppose that
Gilbert had betrayed him and put the police on his tracks? In
that case, why were they content with taking the crystal stopper,
instead of arresting him, Lupin?
But there was something much stranger still. Admitting that they
had been able to force the doors of his flat--and this he was
compelled to admit, though there was no mark to show it--how had
they succeeded in entering the bedroom? He turned the key and
pushed the bolt as he did every evening, in accordance with a habit
from which he never departed. And, nevertheless--the fact was
undeniable--the crystal stopper had disappeared without the lock or
the bolt having been touched. And, although Lupin flattered himself
that he had sharp ears, even when asleep, not a sound had waked him!
He took no great pains to probe the mystery. He knew those problems
too well to hope that this one could be solved other than in the
course of events. But, feeling very much put out and exceedingly
uneasy, he then and there locked up his entresol flat in the Rue
Matignon and swore that he would never set foot in it again.
And he applied himself forthwith to the question of corresponding
with Vaucheray or Gilbert.
Here a fresh disappointment awaited him. It was so clearly
understood, both at the Santé Prison and at the Law Courts,
that all communication between Lupin and the prisoners must be
absolutely prevented, that a multitude of minute precautions were
ordered by the prefect of police and minutely observed by the
lowest subordinates. Tried policemen, always the same men, watched
Gilbert and Vaucheray, day and night, and never let them out of
their sight.
Lupin, at this time, had not yet promoted himself to the
crowning honour of his career, the post of chief of the
detective-service,[A] and, consequently, was not able to take steps
at the Law Courts to insure the execution of his plans. After a
fortnight of fruitless endeavours, he was obliged to bow.
He did so with a raging heart and a growing sense of anxiety.
“The difficult part of a business,” he often says, “is not the
finish, but the start.”
Where was he to start in the present circumstances? What road was
he to follow?
His thoughts recurred to Daubrecq the deputy, the original owner
of the crystal stopper, who probably knew its importance. On the
other hand, how was Gilbert aware of the doings and mode of life of
Daubrecq the deputy? What means had he employed to keep him under
observation? Who had told him of the place where Daubrecq spent the
evening of that day? These were all interesting questions to solve.
Daubrecq had moved to his winter quarters in Paris immediately
after the burglary at the Villa Marie-Thérèse and was now living in
his own house, on the left-hand side of the little Square Lamartine
that opens out at the end of the Avenue Victor-Hugo.
First disguising himself as an old gentleman of private means,
strolling about, cane in hand, Lupin spent his time in the
neighbourhood, on the benches of the square and the avenue. He
made a discovery on the first day. Two men, dressed as workmen,
but behaving in a manner that left no doubt as to their aims, were
watching the deputy’s house. When Daubrecq went out, they set off
in pursuit of him; and they were immediately behind him when he
came home again. At night, as soon as the lights were out, they
went away.
Lupin shadowed them in his turn. They were detective-officers.
“Hullo, hullo!” he said to himself. “This is hardly what I
expected. So the Daubrecq bird is under suspicion?”
But, on the fourth day, at nightfall, the two men were joined by
six others, who conversed with them in the darkest part of the
Square Lamartine. And, among these new arrivals, Lupin was vastly
astonished to recognize, by his figure and bearing, the famous
Prasville, the erstwhile barrister, sportsman and explorer, now
favourite at the Élysée, who, for some mysterious reason, had been
pitchforked into the headquarters of police as secretary-general,
with the reversion of the prefecture.
And, suddenly, Lupin remembered: two years ago, Prasville and
Daubrecq the deputy had had a personal encounter on the Place du
Palais-Bourbon. The incident made a great stir at the time. No one
knew the cause of it. Prasville had sent his seconds to Daubrecq on
the same day; but Daubrecq refused to fight.
A little while later, Prasville was appointed secretary-general.
“Very odd, very odd,” said Lupin, who remained plunged in thought,
while continuing to observe Prasville’s movements.
At seven o’clock Prasville’s group of men moved away a few yards,
in the direction of the Avenue Henri-Martin. The door of a small
garden on the right of the house opened and Daubrecq appeared. The
two detectives followed close behind him and, when he took the
Rue-Taitbout train, jumped on after him.
Prasville at once walked across the square and rang the bell. The
garden-gate was between the house and the porter’s lodge. The
portress came and opened it. There was a brief conversation, after
which Prasville and his companions were admitted.
“A domiciliary visit,” said Lupin. “Secret and illegal. By the
strict rules of politeness, I ought to be invited. My presence is
indispensable.”
Without the least hesitation he went up to the house, the door of
which had not been closed, and, passing in front of the portress,
who was casting her eyes outside, he asked, in the hurried tones of
a person who is late for an appointment:
“Have the gentlemen come?”
“Yes, you will find them in the study.”
His plan was quite simple: if any one met him, he would pretend to
be a tradesman. But there was no need for this subterfuge. He was
able, after crossing an empty hall, to enter a dining-room which
also had no one in it, but which, through the panes of a glass
partition that separated the dining-room from the study, afforded
him a view of Prasville and his five companions.
Prasville opened all the drawers with the aid of false keys. Next,
he examined all the papers, while his companions took down the
books from the shelves, shook the pages of each separately and felt
inside the bindings.
“Of course, it’s a paper they’re looking for,” said Lupin.
“Bank-notes, perhaps....”
Prasville exclaimed:
“What rot! We shan’t find a thing!”
Yet he obviously did not abandon all hope of discovering what he
wanted, for he suddenly seized the four bottles in a liqueur-stand,
took out the four stoppers and inspected them.
“Hullo!” thought Lupin. “Now he’s going for decanter-stoppers! Then
it’s not a question of a paper? Well, I give it up.”
Prasville next lifted and examined different objects; and he asked:
“How often have you been here?”
“Six times last winter,” was the reply.
“And you have searched the house thoroughly?”
“Every one of the rooms, for days at a time, while he was visiting
his constituency.”
“Still . . . still....” And he added, “Has he no servant at present?”
“No, he is looking for one. He has his meals out and the portress
keeps the house as best she can. The woman is devoted to us....”
Prasville persisted in his investigations for nearly an hour and a
half, shifting and fingering all the knick-knacks, but taking care
to put everything back exactly where he found it. At nine o’clock,
however, the two detectives who had followed Daubrecq burst into
the study:
“He’s coming back!”
“On foot?”
“Yes.”
“Have we time?”
“Oh, dear, yes!”
Prasville and the men from the police-office withdrew, without
undue haste, after taking a last glance round the room to make sure
that there was nothing to betray their visit.
The position was becoming critical for Lupin. He ran the risk of
knocking up against Daubrecq, if he went away, or of not being
able to get out, if he remained. But, on ascertaining that the
dining-room windows afforded a direct means of exit to the square,
he resolved to stay. Besides, the opportunity of obtaining a close
view of Daubrecq was too good to refuse; and, as Daubrecq had
been out to dinner, there was not much chance of his entering the
dining-room.
Lupin, therefore, waited, holding himself ready to hide behind a
velvet curtain that could be drawn across the glazed partition in
case of need.
He heard the sound of doors opening and shutting. Some one walked
into the study and switched on the light. He recognized Daubrecq.
The deputy was a stout, thickset, bull-necked man, very nearly
bald, with a fringe of gray whiskers round his chin and wearing a
pair of black eye-glasses under his spectacles, for his eyes were
weak and strained. Lupin noticed the powerful features, the square
chin, the prominent cheek-bones. The hands were brawny and covered
with hair, the legs bowed; and he walked with a stoop, bearing
first on one hip and then on the other, which gave him something
of the gait of a gorilla. But the face was topped by an enormous,
lined forehead, indented with hollows and dotted with bumps.
There was something bestial, something savage, something repulsive
about the man’s whole personality. Lupin remembered that, in the
Chamber of Deputies, Daubrecq was nicknamed “The Wild Man of the
Woods” and that he was so labelled not only because he stood aloof
and hardly ever mixed with his fellow-members, but also because of
his appearance, his behaviour, his peculiar gait and his remarkable
muscular development.
He sat down to his desk, took a meerschaum pipe from his pocket,
selected a packet of caporal among several packets of tobacco which
lay drying in a bowl, tore open the wrapper, filled his pipe and
lit it. Then he began to write letters.
Presently he ceased his work and sat thinking, with his attention
fixed on a spot on his desk.
He lifted a little stamp-box and examined it. Next, he verified
the position of different articles which Prasville had touched and
replaced; and he searched them with his eyes, felt them with his
hands, bending over them as though certain signs, known to himself
alone, were able to tell him what he wished to know.
Lastly, he grasped the knob on an electric bell-push and rang. The
portress appeared a minute later.
He asked:
“They’ve been, haven’t they?”
And, when the woman hesitated about replying, he insisted:
“Come, come, Clémence, did you open this stamp-box?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, I fastened the lid down with a little strip of gummed paper.
The strip has been broken.”
“But I assure you, . . .” the woman began.
“Why tell lies,” he said, “considering that I myself instructed you
to lend yourself to those visits?”
“The fact is....”
“The fact is that you want to keep on good terms with both
sides.... Very well!” He handed her a fifty-franc note and
repeated, “Have they been?”
“Yes.”
“The same men as in the spring?”
“Yes, all five of them . . . with another one, who ordered them
about.”
“A tall, dark man?”
“Yes.”
Lupin saw Daubrecq’s mouth hardening; and Daubrecq continued:
“Is that all?”
“There was one more, who came after they did and joined them . . .
and then, just now, two more, the pair who usually keep watch
outside the house.”
“Did they remain in the study?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And they went away when I came back? A few minutes before,
perhaps?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That will do.”
The woman left the room. Daubrecq returned to his letter-writing.
Then, stretching out his arm, he made some marks on a white
writing-tablet, at the end of his desk, and rested it against the
desk, as though he wished to keep it in sight. The marks were
figures; and Lupin was able to read the following subtraction-sum:
“9 − 8 = 1”
And Daubrecq, speaking between his teeth, thoughtfully uttered the
syllables:
“Eight from nine leaves one.... There’s not a doubt about that,”
he added, aloud. He wrote one more letter, a very short one, and
addressed the envelope with an inscription which Lupin was able to
decipher when the letter was placed beside the writing-tablet:
“To Monsieur Prasville,
Secretary-general of the Prefecture of Police.”
Then he rang the bell again:
“Clémence,” he said, to the portress, “did you go to school as a
child?”
“Yes, sir, of course I did.”
“And were you taught arithmetic?”
“Why, sir....”
“Well, you’re not very good at subtraction.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because you don’t know that nine minus eight equals one. And
that, you see, is a fact of the highest importance. Life becomes
impossible if you are ignorant of that fundamental truth.”
He rose, as he spoke, and walked round the room, with his hands
behind his back, swaying upon his hips. He did so once more. Then,
stopping at the dining-room, he opened the door:
“For that matter, there’s another way of putting the problem. Take
eight from nine; and one remains. And the one who remains is here,
eh? Correct! And monsieur supplies us with a striking proof, does
he not?”
He patted the velvet curtain in which Lupin had hurriedly wrapped
himself:
“Upon my word, sir, you must be stifling under this! Not to say
that I might have amused myself by sticking a dagger through the
curtain. Remember Hamlet’s madness and Polonius’ death: ‘How now! A
rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!’ Come along, Mr. Polonius, come out
of your hole.”
It was one of those positions to which Lupin was not accustomed and
which he loathed. To catch others in a trap and pull their leg was
all very well; but it was a very different thing to have people
teasing him and roaring with laughter at his expense. Yet what
could he answer back?
“You look a little pale, Mr. Polonius.... Hullo! Why, it’s the
respectable old gentleman who has been hanging about the square for
some days! So you belong to the police too, Mr. Polonius? There,
there, pull yourself together, I sha’n’t hurt you!... But you see,
Clémence, how right my calculation was. You told me that nine spies
had been to the house. I counted a troop of eight, as I came along,
eight of them in the distance, down the avenue. Take eight from
nine and one remains: the one who evidently remained behind to see
what he could see. _Ecce homo!_”
“Well? And then?” said Lupin, who felt a mad craving to fly at the
fellow and reduce him to silence.
“And then? Nothing at all, my good man.... What more do you want?
The farce is over. I will only ask you to take this little note to
Master Prasville, your employer. Clémence, please show Mr. Polonius
out. And, if ever he calls again, fling open the doors wide to
him. Pray look upon this as your home, Mr. Polonius. Your servant,
sir!...”
Lupin hesitated. He would have liked to talk big and to come out
with a farewell phrase, a parting speech, like an actor making
a showy exit from the stage, and at least to disappear with the
honours of war. But his defeat was so pitiable that he could think
of nothing better than to bang his hat on his head and stamp his
feet as he followed the portress down the hall. It was a poor
revenge.
“You rascally beggar!” he shouted, once he was outside the door,
shaking his fist at Daubrecq’s windows. “Wretch, scum of the earth,
deputy, you shall pay for this!... Oh, he allows himself...! Oh, he
has the cheek to...! Well, I swear to you, my fine fellow, that,
one of these days....”
He was foaming with rage, all the more as, in his innermost heart,
he recognized the strength of his new enemy and could not deny the
masterly fashion in which he had managed this business. Daubrecq’s
coolness, the assurance with which he hoaxed the police-officials,
the contempt with which he lent himself to their visits at his
house and, above all, his wonderful self-possession, his easy
bearing and the impertinence of his conduct in the presence of
the ninth person who was spying on him: all this denoted a man of
character, a strong man, with a well-balanced mind, lucid, bold,
sure of himself and of the cards in his hand.
But what were those cards? What game was he playing? Who held the
stakes? And how did the players stand on either side? Lupin could
not tell. Knowing nothing, he flung himself headlong into the thick
of the fray, between adversaries desperately involved, though he
himself was in total ignorance of their positions, their weapons,
their resources and their secret plans. For, when all was said, he
could not admit that the object of all those efforts was to obtain
possession of a crystal stopper!
One thing alone pleased him: Daubrecq had not penetrated his
disguise. Daubrecq believed him to be in the employ of the police.
Neither Daubrecq nor the police, therefore, suspected the intrusion
of a third thief in the business. This was his one and only trump,
a trump that gave him a liberty of action to which he attached the
greatest importance.
Without further delay, he opened the letter which Daubrecq had
handed him for the secretary-general of police. It contained these
few lines:
“Within reach of your hand, my dear Prasville, within reach of
your hand! You touched it! A little more and the trick was
done.... But you’re too big a fool. And to think that they
couldn’t hit upon any one better than you to make me bite the
dust. Poor old France! Good-bye, Prasville. But, if I catch you
in the act, it will be a bad lookout for you: my maxim is to
shoot at sight.
“DAUBRECQ”
“‘Within reach of your hand,’” repeated Lupin, after reading the
note. “And to think that the rogue may be writing the truth! The
most elementary hiding-places are the safest. We must look into
this, all the same. And, also, we must find out why Daubrecq is
the object of such strict supervision and obtain a few particulars
about the fellow generally.”
* * * * *
The information supplied to Lupin by a private inquiry-office
consisted of the following details:
“ALEXIS DAUBRECQ, deputy of the Bouches-du-Rhône for the past
two years; sits among the independent members. Political
opinions not very clearly defined, but electoral position
exceedingly strong, because of the enormous sums which he
spends in nursing his constituency. No private income.
Nevertheless, has a house in Paris, a villa at Enghien and
another at Nice and loses heavily at play, though no one
knows where the money comes from. Has great influence and
obtains all he wants without making up to ministers or,
apparently, having either friends or connections in political
circles.”
“That’s a trade docket,” said Lupin to himself. “What I want is
a domestic docket, a police docket, which will tell me about the
gentleman’s private life and enable me to work more easily in this
darkness and to know if I’m not getting myself into a tangle by
bothering about the Daubrecq bird. And time’s getting short, hang
it!”
One of the residences which Lupin occupied at that period and
which he used oftener than any of the others was in the Rue
Chateaubriand, near the Arc de l’Étoile. He was known there by the
name of Michel Beaumont. He had a snug flat here and was looked
after by a man-servant, Achille, who was utterly devoted to his
interests and whose chief duty was to receive and repeat the
telephone-messages addressed to Lupin by his followers.
Lupin, on returning home, learnt, with great astonishment, that a
woman had been waiting to see him for over an hour:
“What! Why, no one ever comes to see me here! Is she young?”
“No.... I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so!”
“She’s wearing a lace shawl over her head, instead of a hat, and
you can’t see her face.... She’s more like a clerk . . . or a woman
employed in a shop. She’s not well-dressed....”
“Whom did she ask for?”
“M. Michel Beaumont,” replied the servant.
“Queer. And why has she called?”
“All she said was that it was about the Enghien business.... So I
thought that....”
“What! The Enghien business! Then she knows that I am mixed up in
that business.... She knows that, by applying here....”
“I could not get anything out of her, but I thought, all the same,
that I had better let her in.”
“Quite right. Where is she?”
“In the drawing-room. I’ve put on the lights.”
Lupin walked briskly across the hall and opened the door of the
drawing-room:
“What are you talking about?” he said, to his man. “There’s no one
here.”
“No one here?” said Achille, running up.
And the room, in fact, was empty.
“Well, on my word, this takes the cake!” cried the servant. “It
wasn’t twenty minutes ago that I came and had a look, to make sure.
She was sitting over there. And there’s nothing wrong with my
eyesight, you know.”
“Look here, look here,” said Lupin, irritably. “Where were you
while the woman was waiting?”
“In the hall, governor! I never left the hall for a second! I
should have seen her go out, blow it!”
“Still, she’s not here now....”
“So I see,” moaned the man, quite flabbergasted.
“She must have got tired of waiting and gone away. But, dash it
all, I should like to know how she got out!”
“How she got out?” said Lupin. “It doesn’t take a wizard to tell
that.”
“What do you mean?”
“She got out through the window. Look, it’s still ajar. We are on
the ground-floor.... The street is almost always deserted, in the
evenings. There’s no doubt about it.”
He had looked around him and satisfied himself that nothing had
been taken away or moved. The room, for that matter, contained
no knick-knack of any value, no important paper that might have
explained the woman’s visit, followed by her sudden disappearance.
And yet why that inexplicable flight?
“Has any one telephoned?” he asked.
“No.”
“Any letters?”
“Yes, one letter by the last post.”
“Where is it?”
“I put it on your mantel-piece, governor, as usual.”
Lupin’s bedroom was next to the drawing-room, but Lupin had
permanently bolted the door between the two. He, therefore, had to
go through the hall again.
Lupin switched on the electric light and, the next moment, said:
“I don’t see it....”
“Yes.... I put it next to the flower-bowl.”
“There’s nothing here at all.”
“You must be looking in the wrong place, governor.”
But Achille moved the bowl, lifted the clock, bent down to the
grate, in vain: the letter was not there.
“Oh blast it, blast it!” he muttered. “She’s done it . . . she’s
taken it.... And then, when she had the letter, she cleared out....
Oh, the slut!...”
Lupin said:
“You’re mad! There’s no way through between the two rooms.”
“Then who did take it, governor?”
They were both of them silent. Lupin strove to control his anger
and collect his ideas. He asked:
“Did you look at the envelope?”
“Yes.”
“Anything particular about it?”
“Yes, it looked as if it had been written in a hurry, or scribbled,
rather.”
“How was the address worded?... Do you remember?” asked Lupin, in a
voice strained with anxiety.
“Yes, I remembered it, because it struck me as funny....”
“But speak, will you? Speak!”
“It said, ‘_Monsieur de Beaumont, Michel_.’”
[Illustration: Lupin took his servant by the shoulders and shook
him: “It said ‘de’ Beaumont? Are you sure?”]
Lupin took his servant by the shoulders and shook him:
“It said ‘de’ Beaumont? Are you sure? And ‘Michel’ after ‘Beaumont’?”
“Quite certain.”
“Ah!” muttered Lupin, with a choking throat. “It was a letter from
Gilbert!”
He stood motionless, a little pale, with drawn features. There was
no doubt about it: the letter was from Gilbert. It was the form of
address which, by Lupin’s orders, Gilbert had used for years in
corresponding with him. Gilbert had at last--after long waiting and
by dint of endless artifices--found a means of getting a letter
posted from his prison and had hastily written to him. And now the
letter was intercepted! What did it say? What instructions had
the unhappy prisoner given? What help was he praying for? What
stratagem did he suggest?
Lupin looked round the room, which, contrary to the drawing-room,
contained important papers. But none of the locks had been forced;
and he was compelled to admit that the woman had no other object
than to get hold of Gilbert’s letter.
Constraining himself to keep his temper, he asked:
“Did the letter come while the woman was here?”
“At the same time. The porter rang at the same moment.”
“Could she see the envelope?”
“Yes.”
The conclusion was evident. It remained to discover how the visitor
had been able to effect her theft. By slipping from one window to
the other, outside the flat? Impossible: Lupin found the window of
his room shut. By opening the communicating door? Impossible: Lupin
found it locked and barred with its two inner bolts.
Nevertheless, a person cannot pass through a wall by a mere
operation of will. To go in or out of a room requires a passage;
and, as the act was accomplished in the space of a few minutes, it
was necessary, in the circumstances, that the passage should be
previously in existence, that it should already have been contrived
in the wall and, of course, known to the woman. This hypothesis
simplified the search by concentrating it upon the door; for the
wall was quite bare, without a cupboard, chimney-piece or hangings
of any kind, and unable to conceal the least outlet.
Lupin went back to the drawing-room and prepared to make a study
of the door. But he at once gave a start. He perceived, at the
first glance, that the left lower panel of the six small panels
contained within the cross-bars of the door no longer occupied its
normal position and that the light did not fall straight upon it.
On leaning forward, he saw two little tin tacks sticking out on
either side and holding the panel in place, similar to a wooden
board behind a picture-frame. He had only to shift these. The panel
at once came out.
Achille gave a cry of amazement. But Lupin objected:
“Well? And what then? We are no better off than before. Here is an
empty oblong, eight or nine inches wide by sixteen inches high.
You’re not going to pretend that a woman can slip through an
opening which would not admit the thinnest child of ten years old!”
“No, but she can have put her arm through and drawn the bolts.”
“The bottom bolt, yes,” said Lupin. “But the top bolt, no: the
distance is far too great. Try for yourself and see.”
Achille tried and had to give up the attempt.
Lupin did not reply. He stood thinking for a long time. Then,
suddenly, he said:
“Give me my hat . . . my coat....”
He hurried off, urged by an imperative idea. And, the moment he
reached the street, he sprang into a taxi:
“Rue Matignon, quick!...”
As soon as they came to the house where he had been robbed of the
crystal stopper, he jumped out of the cab, opened his private
entrance, went upstairs, ran to the drawing-room, turned on the
light and crouched at the foot of the door leading to his bedroom.
He had guessed right. One of the little panels was loosened in the
same manner.
And, just as in his other flat in the Rue Chateaubriand, the
opening was large enough to admit a man’s arm and shoulder, but not
to allow him to draw the upper bolt.
“Hang!” he shouted, unable any longer to master the rage that had
been seething within him for the last two hours. “Blast! Shall I
never have finished with this confounded business?”
In fact, an incredible ill-luck seemed to dog his footsteps,
compelling him to grope about at random, without permitting him
to use the elements of success which his own persistency or the
very force of things placed within his grasp. Gilbert gave him
the crystal stopper. Gilbert sent him a letter. And both had
disappeared at that very moment.
And it was not, as he had until then believed, a series of
fortuitous and independent circumstances. No, it was manifestly
the effect of an adverse will pursuing a definite object with
prodigious ability and incredible boldness, attacking him, Lupin,
in the recesses of his safest retreats and baffling him with blows
so severe and so unexpected that he did not even know against whom
he had to defend himself. Never, in the course of his adventures,
had he encountered such obstacles as now.
And, little by little, deep down within himself, there grew a
haunting dread of the future. A date loomed before his eyes, the
terrible date which he unconsciously assigned to the law to perform
its work of vengeance, the date upon which, in the light of a wan
April morning, two men would mount the scaffold, two men who had
stood by him, two comrades whom he had been unable to save from
paying the awful penalty....
[A] See 813, by Maurice Leblanc, translated by Alexander Teixeira
de Mattos.