EXTRA-DRY?
On one of the hills that girdle Nice with the finest scenery in
the world, between the Vallon de Saint-Silvestre and the Vallon
de La Mantéga, stands a huge hotel which overlooks the town and
the wonderful Baie des Anges. A crowd flocks to it from all parts,
forming a medley of every class and nation.
On the evening of the same Saturday when Lupin, the Growler and
the Masher were plunging into Italy, Clarisse Mergy entered this
hotel, asked for a bedroom facing south and selected No. 130, on
the second floor, a room which had been vacant since that morning.
The room was separated from No. 129 by two partition-doors. As soon
as she was alone, Clarisse pulled back the curtain that concealed
the first door, noiselessly drew the bolt and put her ear to the
second door:
“He is here,” she thought. “He is dressing to go to the club . . .
as he did yesterday.”
When her neighbour had gone, she went into the passage and,
availing herself of a moment when there was no one in sight, walked
up to the door of No. 129. The door was locked.
She waited all the evening for her neighbour’s return and did not
go to bed until two o’clock. On Sunday morning, she resumed her
watch.
The neighbour went out at eleven. This time he left the key in the
door.
Hurriedly turning the key, Clarisse entered boldly, went to the
partition-door, raised the curtain, drew the bolt and found herself
in her own room.
In a few minutes, she heard two chambermaids doing the room in No.
129.
She waited until they were gone. Then, feeling sure that she would
not be disturbed, she once more slipped into the other room.
Her excitement made her lean against a chair. After days and nights
of stubborn pursuit, after alternate hopes and disappointments,
she had at last succeeded in entering a room occupied by Daubrecq.
She could look about at her ease; and, if she did not discover the
crystal stopper, she could at least hide in the space between the
partition-doors, behind the hanging, see Daubrecq, spy upon his
movements and surprise his secret.
She looked around her. A travelling-bag at once caught her
attention. She managed to open it; but her search was useless.
She ransacked the trays of a trunk and the compartments of a
portmanteau. She searched the wardrobe, the writing-table, the
chest of drawers, the bathroom, all the tables, all the furniture.
She found nothing.
She gave a start when she saw a scrap of paper on the balcony,
lying as though flung there by accident:
“Can it be a trick of Daubrecq’s?” she thought, out loud. “Can that
scrap of paper contain....”
“No,” said a voice behind her, as she put her hand on the latch.
She turned and saw Daubrecq.
She felt neither astonishment nor alarm, nor even any embarrassment
at finding herself face to face with him. She had suffered too
deeply for months to trouble about what Daubrecq could think of her
or say, at catching her in the act of spying.
She sat down wearily.
He grinned:
“No, you’re out of it, dear friend. As the children say, you’re not
‘burning’ at all. Oh, not a bit of it! And it’s so easy! Shall I
help you? It’s next to you, dear friend, on that little table....
And yet, by Jove, there’s not much on that little table! Something
to read, something to write with, something to smoke, something
to eat . . . and that’s all.... Will you have one of these
candied fruits?... Or perhaps you would rather wait for the more
substantial meal which I have ordered?”
Clarisse made no reply. She did not even seem to listen to what he
was saying, as though she expected other words, more serious words,
which he could not fail to utter.
He cleared the table of all the things that lay upon it and put
them on the mantel-piece. Then he rang the bell.
A head-waiter appeared. Daubrecq asked:
“Is the lunch which I ordered ready?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s for two, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the champagne?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Extra-dry?”
“Yes, sir.”
Another waiter brought a tray and laid two covers on the table: a
cold lunch, some fruit and a bottle of champagne in an ice-pail.
Then the two waiters withdrew.
“Sit down, dear lady. As you see, I was thinking of you and your
cover is laid.”
And, without seeming to observe that Clarisse was not at all
prepared to do honour to his invitation, he sat down, began to eat
and continued:
“Yes, upon my word, I hoped that you would end by consenting to
this little private meeting. During the past week, while you
were keeping so assiduous a watch upon me, I did nothing but say
to myself, ‘I wonder which she prefers: sweet champagne, dry
champagne, or extra-dry?’ I was really puzzled. Especially after
our departure from Paris. I had lost your tracks, that is to say,
I feared that you had lost mine and abandoned the pursuit which
was so gratifying to me. When I went for a walk, I missed your
beautiful dark eyes, gleaming with hatred under your hair just
touched with gray. But, this morning, I understood: the room next
to mine was empty at last; and my friend Clarisse was able to take
up her quarters, so to speak, by my bedside. From that moment I was
reassured. I felt certain that, on coming back--instead of lunching
in the restaurant as usual--I should find you arranging my things
to your convenience and suiting your own taste. That was why I
ordered two covers: one for your humble servant, the other for his
fair friend.”
She was listening to him now and in the greatest terror. So
Daubrecq knew that he was spied upon! For a whole week he had seen
through her and all her schemes!
In a low voice, anxious-eyed, she asked:
“You did it on purpose, did you not? You only went away to drag me
with you?”
“Yes,” he said.
“But why? Why?”
“Do you mean to say that you don’t know?” retorted Daubrecq,
laughing with a little cluck of delight.
She half-rose from her chair and, bending toward him, thought, as
she thought each time, of the murder which she could commit, of the
murder which she would commit. One revolver-shot and the odious
brute was done for.
Slowly her hand glided to the weapon concealed in her bodice.
Daubrecq said:
“One second, dear friend.... You can shoot presently; but I beg you
first to read this wire which I have just received.”
She hesitated, not knowing what trap he was laying for her; but he
went on, as he produced a telegram:
“It’s about your son.”
“Gilbert?” she asked, greatly concerned.
“Yes, Gilbert.... Here, read it.”
She gave a yell of dismay. She had read:
“Execution on Tuesday morning.”
And she at once flung herself on Daubrecq, crying:
“It’s not true!... It’s a lie . . . to madden me.... Oh, I know
you: you are capable of anything! Confess! It won’t be on Tuesday,
will it? In two days! No, no.... I tell you, we have four days yet,
five days, in which to save him.... Confess it, confess it!”
She had no strength left, exhausted by this fit of rebellion; and
her voice uttered none but inarticulate sounds.
He looked at her for a moment, then poured himself out a glass of
champagne and drank it down at a gulp. He took a few steps up and
down the room, came back to her and said:
“Listen to me, _darling_....”
The insult made her quiver with an unexpected energy. She drew
herself up and, panting with indignation, said:
“I forbid you.... I forbid you to speak to me like that. I will not
accept such an outrage. You wretch!...”
He shrugged his shoulders and resumed:
“Pah, I see you’re not quite alive to the position. That comes,
of course, because you still hope for assistance in some quarter.
Prasville, perhaps? The excellent Prasville, whose right hand you
are.... My dear friend, a forlorn hope.... You must know that
Prasville is mixed up in the Canal affair! Not directly: that is
to say, his name is not on the list of the Twenty-seven; but it is
there under the name of one of his friends, an ex-deputy called
Vorenglade, Stanislas Vorenglade, his man of straw, apparently: a
penniless individual whom I left alone and rightly. I knew nothing
of all that until this morning, when, lo and behold, I received a
letter informing me of the existence of a bundle of documents which
prove the complicity of our one and only Prasville! And who is my
informant? Vorenglade himself! Vorenglade, who, tired of living in
poverty, wants to extort money from Prasville, at the risk of being
arrested, and who will be delighted to come to terms with me. And
Prasville will get the sack. Oh, what a lark! I swear to you that
he will get the sack, the villain! By Jove, but he’s annoyed me
long enough! Prasville, old boy, you’ve deserved it....”
He rubbed his hands together, revelling in his coming revenge. And
he continued:
“You see, my dear Clarisse . . . there’s nothing to be done in
that direction. What then? What straw will you cling to? Why, I
was forgetting: M. Arsène Lupin! Mr. Growler! Mr. Masher!... Pah,
you’ll admit that those gentlemen have not shone and that all their
feats of prowess have not prevented me from going my own little
way. It was bound to be. Those fellows imagine that there’s no one
to equal them. When they meet an adversary like myself, one who
is not to be bounced, it upsets them and they make blunder after
blunder, while still believing that they are hoodwinking him like
mad. Schoolboys, that’s what they are! However, as you seem to have
some illusions left about the aforesaid Lupin, as you are counting
on that poor devil to crush me and to work a miracle in favour of
your innocent Gilbert, come, let’s dispel that illusion. Oh! Lupin!
Lord above, she believes in Lupin! She places her last hopes in
Lupin! Lupin! Just wait till I prick you, my illustrious windbag!”
He took up the receiver of the telephone which communicated with
the hall of the hotel and said:
“I’m No. 129, mademoiselle. Would you kindly ask the person
sitting opposite your office to come up to me?... Huh!... Yes,
mademoiselle, the gentleman in a gray felt hat. He knows. Thank
you, mademoiselle.”
Hanging up the receiver, he turned to Clarisse:
“Don’t be afraid. The man is discretion itself. Besides, it’s
the motto of his trade: ‘Discretion and dispatch.’ As a retired
detective, he has done me a number of services, including that of
following you while you were following me. Since our arrival in the
south, he has been less busy with you; but that was because he was
more busy elsewhere. Come in, Jacob.”
He himself opened the door, and a short, thin man, with a red
moustache, entered the room.
“Please tell this lady, Jacob, in a few brief words, what you have
done since Wednesday evening, when, after letting her get into the
_train-de-luxe_ which was taking me from the Gare de Lyon to the
south, you yourself remained on the platform at the station. Of
course, I am not asking how you spent your time, except in so far
as concerns the lady and the business with which I entrusted you.”
Jacob dived into the inside-pocket of his jacket and produced a
little note-book of which he turned over the pages and read them
aloud in the voice of a man reading a report:
“_Wednesday evening_, 8.15. Gare de Lyon. Wait for two gents,
Growler and Masher. They come with another whom I don’t know
yet, but who can only be M. Nicole. Give a porter ten francs
for the loan of his cap and blouse. Accost the gents and tell
them, from a lady, ‘that they were gone to Monte Carlo.’ Next,
telephone to the porter at the Hôtel Franklin. All telegrams
sent to his boss and dispatched by said boss will be read by
said hotel-porter and, if necessary, intercepted.
“_Thursday._ Monte Carlo. The three gents search the hotels.
“_Friday._ Flying visits to La Turbie, the Cap d’Ail, Cap
Martin. M. Daubrecq rings me up. Thinks it wiser to send the
gents to Italy. Make the porter of the Hôtel Franklin send
them a telegram appointing a meeting at San Remo.
“_Saturday._ San Remo. Station platform. Give the porter of
the Ambassadeurs-Palace ten francs for the loan of his cap.
The three gents arrive. They speak to me. Explain to them that
a lady traveller, Mme. Mergy, is going on to Genoa, to the
Hôtel Continental. The gents hesitate. M. Nicole wants to get
out. The others hold him back. The train starts. Good luck,
gents! An hour later, I take the train for France and get out
at Nice, to await fresh orders.”
Jacob closed his note-book and concluded:
“That’s all. To-day’s doings will be entered this evening.”
“You can enter them now, M. Jacob. ‘12 noon. M. Daubrecq sends me
to the Wagon-Lits Co. I book two berths in the Paris sleeping-car,
by the 2.48 train, and send them to M. Daubrecq by express
messenger. Then I take the 12.58 train for Vintimille, the
frontier-station, where I spend the day on the platform watching
all the travellers who come to France. Should Messrs. Nicole,
Growler and Masher take it into their heads to leave Italy and
return to Paris by way of Nice, my instructions are to telegraph to
the headquarters of police that Master Arsène Lupin and two of his
accomplices are in train number so-and-so.”
While speaking, Daubrecq led Jacob to the door. He closed it after
him, turned the key, pushed the bolt and, going up to Clarisse,
said:
“And now, _darling_, listen to me.”
This time, she uttered no protest. What could she do against such
an enemy, so powerful, so resourceful, who provided for everything,
down to the minutest details, and who toyed with his adversaries in
such an airy fashion? Even if she had hoped till then for Lupin’s
interference, how could she do so now, when he was wandering
through Italy in pursuit of a shadow?
She understood at last why three telegrams which she had sent to
the Hôtel Franklin had remained unanswered. Daubrecq was there,
lurking in the dark, watching, establishing a void around her,
separating her from her comrades in the fight, bringing her
gradually, a beaten prisoner, within the four walls of that room.
She felt her weakness. She was at the monster’s mercy. She must be
silent and resigned.
He repeated, with an evil delight:
“Listen to me, darling. Listen to the irrevocable words which I
am about to speak. Listen to them well. It is now 12 o’clock. The
last train starts at 2.48: you understand, the last train that can
bring me to Paris to-morrow, Monday, in time to save your son. The
evening-trains would arrive too late. The _trains-de-luxe_ are full
up. Therefore I shall have to start at 2.48. Am I to start?”
“Yes.”
“Our berths are booked. Will you come with me?”
“Yes.”
“You know my conditions for interfering?”
“Yes.”
“Do you accept them?”
“Yes.”
“You will marry me?”
“Yes.”
Oh, those horrible answers! The unhappy woman gave them in a
sort of awful torpor, refusing even to understand what she was
promising. Let him start first, let him snatch Gilbert from the
engine of death whose vision haunted her day and night.... And
then . . . and then . . . let what must come come....
He burst out laughing:
“Oh, you rogue, it’s easily said!... You’re ready to pledge
yourself to anything, eh? The great thing is to save Gilbert,
isn’t it? Afterward, when that noodle of a Daubrecq comes with his
engagement-ring, not a bit of it! Nothing doing! We’ll laugh in his
face!... No, no, enough of empty words. I don’t want promises that
won’t be kept: I want facts, immediate facts.”
He came and sat close beside her and stated, plainly:
“This is what I propose . . . what must be . . . what shall be....
I will ask, or rather I will demand, not Gilbert’s pardon, to
begin with, but a reprieve, a postponement of the execution, a
postponement of three or four weeks. They will invent a pretext of
some sort: that’s not my affair. And, when Mme. Mergy has become
Mme. Daubrecq, then and not till then will I ask for his pardon,
that is to say, the commutation of his sentence. And make yourself
quite easy: they’ll grant it.”
“I accept.... I accept,” she stammered.
He laughed once more:
“Yes, you accept, because that will happen in a month’s time . . .
and meanwhile you reckon on finding some trick, an assistance of
some kind or another . . . M. Arsène Lupin....”
“I swear it on the head of my son.”
“The head of your son!... Why, my poor pet, you would sell yourself
to the devil to save it from falling!...”
“Oh, yes,” she whispered, shuddering. “I would gladly sell my soul!”
He sidled up against her and, in a low voice:
“Clarisse, it’s not your soul I ask for.... It’s something else....
For more than twenty years my life has spun around that longing.
You are the only woman I have ever loved.... Loathe me, hate me--I
don’t care--but do not spurn me.... Am I to wait? To wait another
month?... No, Clarisse, I have waited too many years already....”
He ventured to touch her hand. Clarisse shrank back with such
disgust that he was seized with fury and cried:
“Oh, I swear to heaven, my beauty, the executioner won’t stand on
such ceremony when he catches hold of your son!... And you give
yourself airs! Why, think, it’ll happen in forty hours! Forty
hours, no more, and you hesitate . . . and you have scruples, when
your son’s life is at stake! Come, come, no whimpering, no silly
sentimentality.... Look things in the face. By your own oath,
you are my wife, you are my bride from this moment.... Clarisse,
Clarisse, give me your lips....”
Half-fainting, she had hardly the strength to put out her arm and
push him away; and, with a cynicism in which all his abominable
nature stood revealed, Daubrecq, mingling words of cruelty and
words of passion, continued:
“Save your son!... Think of the last morning: the preparations for
the scaffold, when they snip away his shirt and cut his hair....
Clarisse, Clarisse, I will save him.... Be sure of it.... All my
life shall be yours.... Clarisse....”
She no longer resisted. It was over. The loathsome brute’s lips
were about to touch hers; and it had to be, and nothing could
prevent it. It was her duty to obey the decree of fate. She had
long known it. She understood it; and, closing her eyes, so as not
to see the foul face that was slowly raised to hers, she repeated
to herself:
“My son . . . my poor son.”
A few seconds passed: ten, twenty perhaps. Daubrecq did not move.
Daubrecq did not speak. And she was astounded at that great silence
and that sudden quiet. Did the monster, at the last moment, feel a
scruple of remorse?
She raised her eyelids.
[Illustration: The sight which she beheld struck her with
stupefaction.]
The sight which she beheld struck her with stupefaction. Instead
of the grinning features which she expected to see, she saw a
motionless, unrecognizable face, contorted by an expression of
unspeakable terror: and the eyes, invisible under the double
impediment of the spectacles, seemed to be staring above her head,
above the chair in which she lay prostrate.
Clarisse turned her face. Two revolver-barrels, pointed at
Daubrecq, showed on the right, a little above the chair. She saw
only that: those two huge, formidable revolvers, gripped in two
clenched hands. She saw only that and also Daubrecq’s face, which
fear was discolouring little by little, until it turned livid. And,
almost at the same time, some one slipped behind Daubrecq, sprang
up fiercely, flung one of his arms round Daubrecq’s neck, threw
him to the ground with incredible violence and applied a pad of
cotton-wool to his face. A sudden smell of chloroform filled the
room.
Clarisse had recognized M. Nicole.
“Come along, Growler!” he cried. “Come along, Masher! Drop your
shooters: I’ve got him! He’s a limp rag.... Tie him up.”
Daubrecq, in fact, was bending in two and falling on his knees like
a disjointed doll. Under the action of the chloroform, the fearsome
brute sank into impotence, became harmless and grotesque.
The Growler and the Masher rolled him in one of the blankets of the
bed and tied him up securely.
“That’s it! That’s it!” shouted Lupin, leaping to his feet.
And, in a sudden reaction of mad delight, he began to dance a wild
jig in the middle of the room, a jig mingled with bits of can-can
and the contortions of the cakewalk and the whirls of a dancing
dervish and the acrobatic movements of a clown and the lurching
steps of a drunken man. And he announced, as though they were the
numbers in a music-hall performance:
“The prisoner’s dance!... The captive’s hornpipe!... A _fantasia_
on the corpse of a representative of the people!... The chloroform
polka!... The two-step of the conquered goggles! _Ollé! Ollé!_ The
blackmailer’s fandango! Hoot! Hoot! The McDaubrecq’s fling!... The
turkey trot!... _And_ the bunny hug!... _And_ the grizzly bear!...
The Tyrolean dance: tra-la-liety!... _Allons, enfants de la
partie!_.... Zing, boum, boum! Zing, boum, boum!...”
All his street-arab nature, all his instincts of gaiety, so long
suppressed by his constant anxiety and disappointment, came out and
betrayed themselves in roars of laughter, bursts of animal spirits
and a picturesque need of childlike exuberance and riot.
He gave a last high kick, turned a series of cartwheels round the
room and ended by standing with his hands on his hips and one foot
on Daubrecq’s lifeless body.
“An allegorical _tableau_!” he announced. “The angel of virtue
destroying the hydra of vice!”
And the humour of the scene was twice as great because Lupin was
appearing under the aspect of M. Nicole, in the clothes and figure
of that wizened, awkward, nervous private tutor.
A sad smile flickered across Mme. Mergy’s face, her first smile for
many a long month. But, at once returning to the reality of things,
she besought him:
“Please, please . . . think of Gilbert!”
He ran up to her, caught her in his arms and, obeying a spontaneous
impulse, so frank that she could but laugh at it, gave her a
resounding kiss on either cheek:
“There, lady, that’s the kiss of a decent man! Instead of Daubrecq,
it’s I kissing you.... Another word and I’ll do it again . . . and
I’ll call you darling next.... Be angry with me, if you dare. Oh,
how happy I am!”
He knelt before her on one knee. And, respectfully:
“I beg your pardon, madame. The fit is over.”
And, getting up again, resuming his whimsical manner, he continued,
while Clarisse wondered what he was driving at:
“What’s the next article, madame? Your son’s pardon, perhaps?
Certainly! Madame, I have the honour to grant you the pardon of
your son, the commutation of his sentence to penal servitude for
life and, to wind up with, his early escape. It’s settled, eh,
Growler? Settled, Masher, what? You’ll both go with the boy to New
Caledonia and arrange for everything. Oh, my dear Daubrecq, we owe
you a great debt! But I’m not forgetting you, believe me! What
would you like? A last pipe? Coming, coming!”
He took one of the pipes from the mantel-piece, stooped over the
prisoner, shifted his pad and thrust the amber mouth-piece between
his teeth:
“Draw, old chap, draw. Lord, how funny you look, with your plug
over your nose and your cutty in your mouth. Come, puff away.
By Jove, I forgot to fill your pipe! Where’s your tobacco, your
favourite Maryland?... Oh, here we are!...”
He took from the chimney an unopened yellow packet and tore off the
government band:
“His lordship’s tobacco! Ladies and gentlemen, keep your eyes on
me! This is a great moment. I am about to fill his lordship’s pipe:
by Jupiter, what an honour! Observe my movements! You see, I have
nothing in my hands, nothing up my sleeves!...”
He turned back his cuffs and stuck out his elbows. Then he opened
the packet and inserted his thumb and fore-finger, slowly,
gingerly, like a conjurer performing a sleight-of-hand trick before
a puzzled audience, and, beaming all over his face, extracted
from the tobacco a glittering object which he held out before the
spectators.
Clarisse uttered a cry.
It was the crystal stopper.
She rushed at Lupin and snatched it from him:
“That’s it; that’s the one!” she exclaimed, feverishly. “There’s no
scratch on the stem! And look at this line running down the middle,
where the gilt finishes.... That’s it; it unscrews!... Oh, dear,
my strength’s going!...” She trembled so violently that Lupin took
back the stopper and unscrewed it himself.
The inside of the knob was hollow; and in the hollow space was a
piece of paper rolled into a tiny pellet.
“The foreign-post-paper,” he whispered, himself greatly excited,
with quivering hands.
There was a long silence. All four felt as if their hearts were
ready to burst from their bodies; and they were afraid of what was
coming.
“Please, please . . .” stammered Clarisse.
Lupin unfolded the paper.
There was a set of names written one below the other, twenty-seven
of them, the twenty-seven names of the famous list: Langeroux,
Dechaumont, Vorenglade, d’Albufex, Victorien Mergy and the rest.
And, at the foot, the signature of the chairman of the Two-Seas
Canal Company, the signature written in letters of blood.
Lupin looked at his watch:
“A quarter to one,” he said. “We have twenty minutes to spare.
Let’s have some lunch.”
“But,” said Clarisse, who was already beginning to lose her head,
“don’t forget....”
He simply said:
“All I know is that I’m dying of hunger.”
He sat down at the table, cut himself a large slice of cold pie and
said to his accomplices:
“Growler? A bite? You, Masher?”
“I could do with a mouthful, governor.”
“Then hurry up, lads. And a glass of champagne to wash it down
with: it’s the chloroform-patient’s treat. Your health, Daubrecq!
Sweet champagne? Dry champagne? Extra-dry?”