his corpse at the same time that they carried away the girl; but what
proof have we? None at all. Any more than of his staying in the ruins,
or of his death, or of his life. And that is the real mystery, M.
Beautrelet. The murder of Mlle. Raymonde solves nothing. On the
contrary, it only complicates matters. What has been happening during
the past two months at the Château d’Ambrumésy? If we don’t clear up
the riddle, young man, others will give us the go-by.”
“On what day are those others coming?”
“Wednesday—Tuesday perhaps—”
Beautrelet seemed to be making an inward calculation and then declared:
“Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, this is Saturday. I have to be back at
school on Monday evening. Well, if you will have the goodness to be
here at ten o’clock exactly on Monday morning, I will try to give you
the key to the riddle.”
“Really, M. Beautrelet—do you think so? Are you sure?”
“I hope so, at any rate.”
“And where are you going now?”
“I am going to see if the facts consent to fit in with the general
theory which I am beginning to perceive.”
“And if they don’t fit in?”
“Well, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction,” said Beautrelet, with a laugh,
“then it will be their fault and I must look for others which, will
prove more tractable. Till Monday, then?”
“Till Monday.”
A few minutes later, M. Filleul was driving toward Dieppe, while
Isidore mounted a bicycle which he had borrowed from the Comte de
Gesvres and rode off along the road to Yerville and Caudebec-en-Caux.
There was one point in particular on which the young man was anxious to
form a clear opinion, because this just appeared to him to be the
enemy’s weakest point. Objects of the size of the four Rubens pictures
cannot be juggled away. They were bound to be somewhere. Granting that
it was impossible to find them for the moment, might one not discover
the road by which they had disappeared?
What Beautrelet surmised was that the four pictures had undoubtedly
been carried off in the motor car, but that, before reaching Caudebec,
they were transferred to another car, which had crossed the Seine
either above Caudebec or below it. Now the first horse-boat down the
stream was at Quillebeuf, a greatly frequented ferry and, consequently,
dangerous. Up stream, there was the ferry-boat at La Mailleraie, a
large, but lonely market-town, lying well off the main road.
By midnight, Isidore had covered the thirty-five or forty miles to La
Mailleraie and was knocking at the door of an inn by the waterside. He
slept there and, in the morning, questioned the ferrymen.
They consulted the counterfoils in the traffic-book. No motor-car had
crossed on Thursday the 23rd of April.
“A horse-drawn vehicle, then?” suggested Beautrelet. “A cart? A van?”
“No, not either.”
Isidore continued his inquiries all through the morning. He was on the
point of leaving for Quillebeuf, when the waiter of the inn at which he
had spent the night said:
“I came back from my thirteen days’ training on the morning of which
you are speaking and I saw a cart, but it did not go across.”
“Really?”
“No, they unloaded it onto a flat boat, a barge of sorts, which was
moored to the wharf.”
“And where did the cart come from?”
“Oh, I knew it at once. It belonged to Master Vatinel, the carter.”
“And where does he live?”
“At Louvetot.”
Beautrelet consulted his military map. The hamlet of Louvetot lay where
the highroad between Yvetot and Caudebec was crossed by a little
winding road that ran through the woods to La Mailleraie.
Not until six o’clock in the evening did Isidore succeed in discovering
Master Vatinel, in a pothouse. Master Vatinel was one of those artful
old Normans who are always on their guard, who distrust strangers, but
who are unable to resist the lure of a gold coin or the influence of a
glass or two:
“Well, yes, sir, the men in the motor car that morning had told me to
meet them at five o’clock at the crossroads. They gave me four great,
big things, as high as that. One of them went with me and we carted the
things to the barge.”
“You speak of them as if you knew them before.”
“I should think I did know them! It was the sixth time they were
employing me.”
Isidore gave a start:
“The sixth time, you say? And since when?”
“Why every day before that one, to be sure! But it was other things
then—great blocks of stone—or else smaller, longish ones, wrapped up in
newspapers, which they carried as if they were worth I don’t know what.
Oh, I mustn’t touch those on any account!—But what’s the matter? You’ve
turned quite white.”
“Nothing—the heat of the room—”
Beautrelet staggered out into the air. The joy, the surprise of the
discovery made him feel giddy. He went back very quietly to
Varengeville, slept in the village, spent an hour at the mayor’s
offices with the school-master and returned to the château. There he
found a letter awaiting him “care of M. le Comte de Gesvres.” It
consisted of a single line:
“Second warning. Hold your tongue. If not—”
“Come,” he muttered. “I shall have to make up my mind and take a few
precautions for my personal safety. If not, as they say—”
It was nine o’clock. He strolled about among the ruins and then lay
down near the cloisters and closed his eyes.
“Well, young man, are you satisfied with the results of your campaign?”
It was M. Filleul.
“Delighted, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction.”
“By which you mean to say—?”
“By which I mean to say that I am prepared to keep my promise—in spite
of this very uninviting letter.”
He showed the letter to M. Filleul.
“Pooh! Stuff and nonsense!” cried the magistrate. “I hope you won’t let
that prevent you—”
“From telling you what I know? No, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction. I
have given my word and I shall keep it. In less than ten minutes, you
shall know—a part of the truth.”
“A part?”
“Yes, in my opinion, Lupin’s hiding-place does not constitute the whole
of the problem. Far from it. But we shall see later on.”
“M. Beautrelet, nothing that you do could astonish me now. But how were
you able to discover—?”
“Oh, in a very natural way! In the letter from old man Harlington to M.
Étienne de Vaudreix, or rather to Lupin—”
“The intercepted letter?”
“Yes. There is a phrase which always puzzled me. After saying that the
pictures are to be forwarded as arranged, he goes on to say, ‘You may
add _the rest_, if you are able to succeed, which I doubt.’”
“Yes, I remember.”
“What was this ‘rest’? A work of art, a curiosity? The château contains
nothing of any value besides the Rubenses and the tapestries. Jewelry?
There is very little and what there is of it is not worth much. In that
case, what could it be?—On the other hand, was it conceivable that
people so prodigiously clever as Lupin should not have succeeded in
adding ‘the rest,’ which they themselves had evidently suggested? A
difficult undertaking, very likely; exceptional, surprising, I dare
say; but possible and therefore certain, since Lupin wished it.”
“And yet he failed: nothing has disappeared.”
“He did not fail: something has disappeared.”
“Yes, the Rubenses—but—”
“The Rubenses and something besides—something which has been replaced
by a similar thing, as in the case of the Rubenses; something much more
uncommon, much rarer, much more valuable than the Rubenses.”
“Well, what? You’re killing me with this procrastination!”
While talking, the two men had crossed the ruins, turned toward the
little door and were now walking beside the chapel. Beautrelet stopped:
“Do you really want to know, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction?”
“Of course, I do.”
Beautrelet was carrying a walking-stick, a strong, knotted stick.
Suddenly, with a back stroke of this stick, he smashed one of the
little statues that adorned the front of the chapel.
“Why, you’re mad!” shouted M. Filleul, beside himself, rushing at the
broken pieces of the statue. “You’re mad! That old saint was an
admirable bit of work—”
“An admirable bit of work!” echoed Isidore, giving a whirl which
brought down the Virgin Mary.
M. Filleul took hold of him round the body:
“Young man, I won’t allow you to commit—”
A wise man of the East came toppling to the ground, followed by a
manger containing the Mother and Child. . . .
“If you stir another limb, I fire!”
The Comte de Gesvres had appeared upon the scene and was cocking his
revolver. Beautrelet burst out laughing:
“That’s right, Monsieur le Comte, blaze away!—Take a shot at them, as
if you were at a fair!—Wait a bit—this chap carrying his head in his
hands—”
St. John the Baptist fell, shattered to pieces.
“Oh!” shouted the count, pointing his revolver. “You young
vandal!—Those masterpieces!”
“Sham, Monsieur le Comte!”
“What? What’s that?” roared M. Filleul, wresting the Comte de Gesvres’s
weapon from him.
“Sham!” repeated Beautrelet. “Paper-pulp and plaster!”
“Oh, nonsense! It can’t be true!”
“Hollow plaster, I tell you! Nothing at all!”
The count stooped and picked up a sliver of a statuette.
“Look at it, Monsieur le Comte, and see for yourself: it’s plaster!
Rusty, musty, mildewed plaster, made to look like old stone—but plaster
for all that, plaster casts!—That’s all that remains of your perfect
masterpiece!—That’s what they’ve done in just a few days!-That’s what
the Sieur Charpenais who copied the Rubenses, prepared a year ago.” He
seized M. Filleul’s arm in his turn. “What do you think of it, Monsieur
le Juge d’Instruction? Isn’t it fine? Isn’t it grand? Isn’t it
gorgeous? The chapel has been removed! A whole Gothic chapel collected
stone by stone! A whole population of statues captured and replaced by
these chaps in stucco! One of the most magnificent specimens of an
incomparable artistic period confiscated! The chapel, in short, stolen!
Isn’t it immense? Ah, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, what a genius the
man is!”
“You’re allowing yourself to be carried away, M. Beautrelet.”
“One can’t be carried away too much, monsieur, when one has to do with
people like that. Everything above the average deserves our admiration.
And this man soars above everything. There is in his flight a wealth of
imagination, a force and power, a skill and freedom that send a thrill
through me!”
“Pity he’s dead,” said M. Filleul, with a grin. “He’d have ended by
stealing the towers of Notre-Dame.”
Isidore shrugged his shoulders:
“Don’t laugh, monsieur. He upsets you, dead though he may be.”
“I don’t say not, I don’t say not, M. Beautrelet, I confess that I feel
a certain excitement now that I am about to set eyes on him—unless,
indeed, his friends have taken away the body.”
“And always admitting,” observed the Comte de Gesvres, “that it was
really he who was wounded by my poor niece.”
“It was he, beyond a doubt, Monsieur le Comte,” declared Beautrelet;
“it was he, believe me, who fell in the ruins under the shot fired by
Mlle. de Saint-Véran; it was he whom she saw rise and who fell again
and dragged himself toward the cloisters to rise again for the last
time—this by a miracle which I will explain to you presently—to rise
again for the last time and reach this stone shelter—which was to be
his tomb.”
And Beautrelet struck the threshold of the chapel with his stick.
“Eh? What?” cried M. Filleul, taken aback. “His tomb?—Do you think that
that impenetrable hiding-place—”
“It was here—there,” he repeated.
“But we searched it.”
“Badly.”
“There is no hiding-place here,” protested M. de Gesvres. “I know the
chapel.”
“Yes, there is, Monsieur le Comte. Go to the mayor’s office at
Varengeville, where they have collected all the papers that used to be
in the old parish of Ambrumésy, and you will learn from those papers,
which belong to the eighteenth century, that there is a crypt below the
chapel. This crypt doubtless dates back to the Roman chapel, upon the
site of which the present one was built.”
“But how can Lupin have known this detail?” asked M. Filleul.
“In a very simple manner: because of the works which he had to execute
to take away the chapel.”
“Come, come, M. Beautrelet, you’re exaggerating. He has not taken away
the whole chapel. Look, not one of the stones of this top course has
been touched.”
“Obviously, he cast and took away only what had a financial value: the
wrought stones, the sculptures, the statuettes, the whole treasure of
little columns and carved arches. He did not trouble about the
groundwork of the building itself. The foundations remain.”
“Therefore, M. Beautrelet, Lupin was not able to make his way into the
crypt.”
At that moment, M. de Gesvres, who had been to call a servant, returned
with the key of the chapel. He opened the door. The three men entered.
After a short examination Beautrelet said:
“The flag-stones on the ground have been respected, as one might
expect. But it is easy to perceive that the high altar is nothing more
than a cast. Now, generally, the staircase leading to the crypt opens
in front of the high altar and passes under it.”
“What do you conclude?”
“I conclude that Lupin discovered the crypt when working at the altar.”
The count sent for a pickaxe and Beautrelet attacked the altar. The
plaster flew to right and left. He pushed the pieces aside as he went
on.
“By Jove!” muttered M. Filleul, “I am eager to know—”
“So am I,” said Beautrelet, whose face was pale with anguish.
He hurried his blows. And, suddenly, his pickaxe, which, until then,
had encountered no resistance, struck against a harder material and
rebounded. There was a sound of something falling in; and all that
remained of the altar went tumbling into the gap after the block of
stone which had been struck by the pickaxe. Beautrelet bent forward. A
puff of cold air rose to his face. He lit a match and moved it from
side to side over the gap:
“The staircase begins farther forward than I expected, under the
entrance-flags, almost. I can see the last steps, there, right at the
bottom.”
“Is it deep?”
“Three or four yards. The steps are very high—and there are some
missing.”
“It is hardly likely,” said M. Filleul, “that the accomplices can have
had time to remove the body from the cellar, when they were engaged in
carrying off Mlle. de Saint-Véran—during the short absence of the
gendarmes. Besides, why should they?—No, in my opinion, the body is
here.”
A servant brought them a ladder. Beautrelet let it down through the
opening and fixed it, after groping among the fallen fragments. Holding
the two uprights firmly:
“Will you go down, M. Filleul?” he asked.
The magistrate, holding a candle in his hand, ventured down the ladder.
The Comte de Gesvres followed him and Beautrelet, in his turn, placed
his foot on the first rung.
Mechanically, he counted eighteen rungs, while his eyes examined the
crypt, where the glimmer of the candle struggled against the heavy
darkness. But, at the bottom, his nostrils were assailed by one of
those foul and violent smells which linger in the memory for many a
long day. And, suddenly, a trembling hand seized him by the shoulder.
“Well, what is it?”
“B-beautrelet,” stammered M. Filleul. “B-beau-trelet—”
He could not get a word out for terror.
“Come, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, compose yourself!”
“Beautrelet—he is there—”
“Eh?”
“Yes—there was something under the big stone that broke off the altar—I
pushed the stone—and I touched—I shall never—shall never forget.—”
“Where is it?”
“On this side.—Don’t you notice the smell?—And then look—see.”
He took the candle and held it towards a motionless form stretched upon
the ground.
“Oh!” exclaimed Beautrelet, in a horror-stricken tone.
The three men bent down quickly. The corpse lay half-naked, lean,
frightful. The flesh, which had the greenish hue of soft wax, appeared
in places through the torn clothes. But the most hideous thing, the
thing that had drawn a cry of terror from the young man’s lips, was the
head, the head which had just been crushed by the block of stone, the
shapeless head, a repulsive mass in which not one feature could be
distinguished.
Beautrelet took four strides up the ladder and fled into the daylight
and the open air.
M. Filleul found him again lying flat on the around, with his hands
glued to his face:
“I congratulate you, Beautrelet,” he said. “In addition to the
discovery of the hiding-place, there are two points on which I have
been able to verify the correctness of your assertions. First of all,
the man on whom Mlle. de Saint-Véran fired was indeed Arsène Lupin, as
you said from the start. Also, he lived in Paris under the name of
Étienne de Vaudreix. His linen is marked with the initials E. V. That
ought to be sufficient proof, I think: don’t you?”
Isidore did not stir.
“Monsieur le Comte has gone to have a horse put to. They’re sending for
Dr. Jouet, who will make the usual examination. In my opinion, death
must have taken place a week ago, at least. The state of decomposition
of the corpse—but you don’t seem to be listening—”
“Yes, yes.”
“What I say is based upon absolute reasons. Thus, for instance—”
M. Filleul continued his demonstrations, without, however, obtaining
any more manifest marks of attention. But M. de Gesvres’s return
interrupted his monologue. The comte brought two letters. One was to
tell him that Holmlock Shears would arrive next morning.
“Capital!” cried M. Filleul, joyfully. “Inspector Ganimard will be here
too. It will be delightful.”
“The other letter is for you, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction,” said the
comte.
“Better and better,” said M. Filleul, after reading it. “There will
certainly not be much for those two gentlemen to do. M. Beautrelet, I
hear from Dieppe that the body of a young woman was found by some
shrimpers, this morning, on the rocks.”
Beautrelet gave a start:
“What’s that? The body—”
“Of a young woman.—The body is horribly mutilated, they say, and it
would be impossible to establish the identity, but for a very narrow
little gold curb-bracelet on the right arm which has become encrusted
in the swollen skin. Now Mlle. de Saint-Véran used to wear a gold
curb-bracelet on her right arm. Evidently, therefore, Monsieur le
Comte, this is the body of your poor niece, which the sea must have
washed to that distance. What do you think, Beautrelet?”
“Nothing—nothing—or, rather, yes—everything is connected, as you
see—and there is no link missing in my argument. All the facts, one
after the other, however contradictory, however disconcerting they may
appear, end by supporting the supposition which I imagined from the
first.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You soon will. Remember, I promised you the whole truth.”
“But it seems to me—”
“A little patience, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction. So far, you have
had no cause to complain of me. It is a fine day. Go for a walk, lunch
at the château, smoke your pipe. I shall be back by four o’clock. As
for my school, well, I don’t care: I shall take the night train.”
They had reached the out-houses at the back of the château. Beautrelet
jumped on his bicycle and rode away.
At Dieppe, he stopped at the office of the local paper, the _Vigie_,
and examined the file for the last fortnight. Then he went on to the
market-town of Envermeu, six or seven miles farther. At Envermeu, he
talked to the mayor, the rector and the local policeman. The
church-clock struck three. His inquiry was finished.
He returned singing for joy. He pressed upon the two pedals turn by
turn, with an equal and powerful rhythm; his chest opened wide to take
in the keen air that blew from the sea. And, from time to time, he
forgot himself to the extent of uttering shouts of triumph to the sky,
when he thought of the aim which he was pursuing and of the success
that was crowning his efforts.
Ambrumésy appeared in sight. He coasted at full speed down the slope
leading to the château. The top rows of venerable trees that line the
road seemed to run to meet him and to vanish behind him forthwith. And,
all at once, he uttered a cry. In a sudden vision, he had seen a rope
stretched from one tree to another, across the road.
His machine gave a jolt and stopped short. Beautrelet was flung three
yards forward, with immense violence, and it seemed to him that only
chance, a miraculous chance, caused him to escape a heap of pebbles on
which, logically, he ought to have broken his head.
He lay for a few seconds stunned. Then, all covered with bruises, with
the skin flayed from his knees, he examined the spot. On the right lay
a small wood, by which his aggressor had no doubt fled. Beautrelet
untied the rope. To the tree on the left around which it was fastened a
small piece of paper was fixed with string. Beautrelet unfolded it and
read:
“The third and last warning.”
He went on to the château, put a few questions to the servants and
joined the examining magistrate in a room on the ground floor, at the
end of the right wing, where M. Filleul used to sit in the course of
his operations. M. Filleul was writing, with his clerk seated opposite
to him. At a sign from him, the clerk left the room; and the magistrate
exclaimed:
“Why, what have you been doing to yourself, M. Beautrelet? Your hands
are covered with blood.”
“It’s nothing, it’s nothing,” said the young man. “Just a fall
occasioned by this rope, which was stretched in front of my bicycle. I
will only ask you to observe that the rope comes from the château. Not
longer than twenty minutes ago, it was being used to dry linen on,
outside the laundry.”
“You don’t mean to say so!”
“Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, I am being watched here, by some one
in the very heart of the place, who can see me, who can hear me and
who, minute by minute, observes my actions and knows my intentions.”
“Do you think so?”
“I am sure of it. It is for you to discover him and you will have no
difficulty in that. As for myself, I want to have finished and to give
you the promised explanations. I have made faster progress than our
adversaries expected and I am convinced that they mean to take vigorous
measures on their side. The circle is closing around me. The danger is
approaching. I feel it.”
“Nonsense, Beautrelet—”
“You wait and see! For the moment, let us lose no time. And, first, a
question on a point which I want to have done with at once. Have you
spoken to anybody of that document which Sergeant Quevillon picked up
and handed you in my presence?”
“No, indeed; not to a soul. But do you attach any value—?”
“The greatest value. It’s an idea of mine, an idea, I confess, which
does not rest upon a proof of any kind—for, up to the present, I have
not succeeded in deciphering the document. And therefore I am
mentioning it—so that we need not come back to it.”
Beautrelet pressed his hand on M. Filleul’s and whispered:
“Don’t speak—there’s some one listening—outside—”
The gravel creaked. Beautrelet ran to the window and leaned out:
“There’s no one there—but the border has been trodden down—we can
easily identify the footprints—”
He closed the window and sat down again:
“You see, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, the enemy has even ceased to
take the most ordinary precautions—he has not time left—he too feels
that the hour is urgent. Let us be quick, therefore, and speak, since
they do not wish us to speak.”
He laid the document on the table and held it in position, unfolded:
“One observation, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, to begin with. The
paper consists almost entirely of dots and figures. And in the first
three lines and the fifth—the only ones with which we have to do at
present, for the fourth seems to present an entirely different
character—not one of those figures is higher than the figure 5. There
is, therefore, a great chance that each of these figures represents one
of the five vowels, taken in alphabetical order. Let us put down the
result.”
He wrote on a separate piece of paper:
e . a . a . . e . . e . a . . a . .
a . . . e . e . . e oi . e . . e .
. ou . . e . o . . . e . . e . o . . e
ai . ui . . e . . eu . e
Then he continued:
“As you see, this does not give us much to go upon. The key is, at the
same time, very easy, because the inventor has contented himself with
replacing the vowels by figures and the consonants by dots, and very
difficult, if not impossible, because he has taken no further trouble
to complicate the problem.”
“It is certainly pretty obscure.”
“Let us try to throw some light upon it. The second line is divided
into two parts; and the second part appears in such a way that it
probably forms one word. If we now seek to replace the intermediary
dots by consonants, we arrive at the conclusion, after searching and
casting about, that the only consonants which are logically able to
support the vowels are also logically able to produce only one word,
the word _demoiselles_.”
“That would refer to Mlle. de Gesvres and Mlle. de Saint-Véran.”
“Undoubtedly.”
“And do you see nothing more?”
“Yes. I also note an hiatus in the middle of the last line; and, if I
apply a similar operation to the beginning of the line, I at once see
that the only consonant able to take the place of the dot between the
diphthongs _fai_ and _ui_ is the letter _g_ and that, when I have thus
formed the first five letters of the word, _aigui_, it is natural and
inevitable that, with the two next dots and the final _e_, I should
arrive at the word _aiguille_.”
“Yes, the word _aiguille_ forces itself upon us.”
“Finally, for the last word, I have three vowels and three consonants.
I cast about again, I try all the letters, one after the other, and,
starting with the principle that the two first letters are necessary
consonants, I find that three words apply: _fleuve_, _preuve_ and
_creuse_. I eliminate the words _fleuve_ and _preuve_, as possessing no
possible relation to a needle, and I keep the word _creuse_.”
“Making ‘hollow needle’! By jove! I admit that your solution is
correct, because it needs must be; but how does it help us?”
“Not at all,” said Beautrelet, in a thoughtful tone. “Not at all, for
the moment.—Later on, we shall see.—I have an idea that a number of
things are included in the puzzling conjunction of those two words,
_aiguille creuse_. What is troubling me at present is rather the
material on which the document is written, the paper employed.—Do they
still manufacture this sort of rather coarse-grained parchment? And
then this ivory color.—And those folds—the wear of those folds—and,
lastly, look, those marks of red sealing-wax, on the back—”
At that moment Beautrelet, was interrupted by Brédoux, the magistrate’s
clerk, who opened the door and announced the unexpected arrival of the
chief public prosecutor. M. Filleul rose:
“Anything new? Is Monsieur le Procureur Général downstairs?”
“No, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction. Monsieur le Procureur Général has
not left his carriage. He is only passing through Ambrumésy and begs
you to be good enough to go down to him at the gate. He only has a word
to say to you.”
“That’s curious,” muttered M. Filleul. “However—we shall see. Excuse
me, Beautrelet, I shan’t be long.”
He went away. His footsteps sounded outside. Then the clerk closed the
door, turned the key and put it in his pocket.
“Hullo!” exclaimed Beautrelet, greatly surprised. “What are you locking
us in for?”
“We shall be able to talk so much better,” retorted Brédoux.
Beautrelet rushed toward another door, which led to the next room. He
had understood: the accomplice was Brédoux, the clerk of the examining
magistrate himself. Brédoux grinned:
“Don’t hurt your fingers, my young friend. I have the key of that door,
too.”
“There’s the window!” cried Beautrelet.
“Too late,” said Brédoux, planting himself in front of the casement,
revolver in hand.
Every chance of retreat was cut off. There was nothing more for Isidore
to do, nothing except to defend himself against the enemy who was
revealing himself with such brutal daring. He crossed his arms.
“Good,” mumbled the clerk. “And now let us waste no time.” He took out
his watch. “Our worthy M. Filleul will walk down to the gate. At the
gate, he will find nobody, of course: no more public prosecutor than my
eye. Then he will come back. That gives us about four minutes. It will
take me one minute to escape by this window, clear through the little
door by the ruins and jump on the motor cycle waiting for me. That
leaves three minutes, which is just enough.”
Brédoux was a queer sort of misshapen creature, who balanced on a pair
of very long spindle-legs a huge trunk, as round as the body of a
spider and furnished with immense arms. A bony face and a low, small
stubborn forehead pointed to the man’s narrow obstinacy.
Beautrelet felt a weakness in the legs and staggered. He had to sit
down:
“Speak,” he said. “What do you want?”
“The paper. I’ve been looking for it for three days.”
“I haven’t got it.”
“You’re lying. I saw you put it back in your pocket-book when I came
in.”
“Next?”
“Next, you must undertake to keep quite quiet. You’re annoying us.
Leave us alone and mind your own business. Our patience is at an end.”
He had come nearer, with the revolver still aimed at the young man’s
head, and spoke in a hollow voice, with a powerful stress on each
syllable that he uttered. His eyes were hard, his smile cruel.
Beautrelet gave a shudder. It was the first time that he was
experiencing the sense of danger. And such danger! He felt himself in
the presence of an implacable enemy, endowed with blind and
irresistible strength.
“And next?” he asked, with less assurance in his voice.
“Next? Nothing.—You will be free.—We will forget—”
There was a pause. Then Brédoux resumed:
“There is only a minute left. You must make up your mind. Come, old
chap, don’t be a fool.—We are the stronger, you know, always and
everywhere.—Quick, the paper—”
Isidore did not flinch. With a livid and terrified face, he remained
master of himself, nevertheless, and his brain remained clear amid the
breakdown of his nerves. The little black hole of the revolver was
pointing at six inches from his eyes. The finger was bent and obviously
pressing on the trigger. It only wanted a moment—
“The paper,” repeated Brédoux. “If not—”
“Here it is,” said Beautrelet.
He took out his pocket-book and handed it to the clerk, who seized it
eagerly.
“Capital! We’ve come to our senses. I’ve no doubt there’s something to
be done with you.—You’re troublesome, but full of common sense. I’ll
talk about it to my pals. And now I’m off. Good-bye!”
He pocketed his revolver and turned back the fastening of the window.
There was a noise in the passage.
“Good-bye,” he said again. “I’m only just in time.”
But the idea stopped him. With a quick movement, he examined the
pocket-book:
“Damn and blast it!” He grated through his teeth. “The paper’s not
there.—You’ve done me—”
He leaped into the room. Two shots rang out. Isidore, in his turn, had
seized his pistol and fired.
“Missed, old chap!” shouted Brédoux. “Your hand’s shaking.—You’re
afraid—”
They caught each other round the body and came down to the floor
together. There was a violent and incessant knocking at the door.
Isidore’s strength gave way and he was at once over come by his
adversary. It was the end. A hand was lifted over him, armed with a
knife, and fell. A fierce pain burst into his shoulder. He let go.
He had an impression of some one fumbling in the inside pocket of his
jacket and taking the paper from it. Then, through the lowered veil of
his eyelids, he half saw the man stepping over the window-sill.
The same newspapers which, on the following morning, related the last
episodes that had occurred at the Château d’Ambrumésy—the trickery at
the chapel, the discovery of Arsène Lupin’s body and of Raymonde’s body
and, lastly, the murderous attempt made upon Beautrelet by the clerk to
the examining magistrate—also announced two further pieces of news: the
disappearance of Ganimard, and the kidnapping of Holmlock Shears, in
broad daylight, in the heart of London, at the moment when he was about
to take the train for Dover.
Lupin’s gang, therefore, which had been disorganized for a moment by
the extraordinary ingenuity of a seventeen-year-old schoolboy, was now
resuming the offensive and was winning all along the line from the
first. Lupin’s two great adversaries, Shears and Ganimard, were put
away. Isidore Beautrelet was disabled. The police were powerless. For
the moment there was no one left capable of struggling against such
enemies.
CHAPTER FOUR
FACE TO FACE
One evening, five weeks later, I had given my man leave to go out. It
was the day before the 14th of July. The night was hot, a storm
threatened and I felt no inclination to leave the flat. I opened wide
the glass doors leading to my balcony, lit my reading lamp and sat down
in an easy-chair to look through the papers, which I had not yet seen.
It goes without saying that there was something about Arsène Lupin in
all of them. Since the attempt at murder of which poor Isidore
Beautrelet had been the victim, not a day had passed without some
mention of the Ambrumésy mystery. It had a permanent headline devoted
to it. Never had public opinion been excited to that extent, thanks to
the extraordinary series of hurried events, of unexpected and
disconcerting surprises. M. Filleul, who was certainly accepting the
secondary part allotted to him with a good faith worthy of all praise,
had let the interviewers into the secret of his young advisor’s
exploits during the memorable three days, so that the public was able
to indulge in the rashest suppositions. And the public gave itself free
scope. Specialists and experts in crime, novelists and playwrights,
retired magistrates and chief-detectives, erstwhile Lecocqs and budding
Holmlock Shearses, each had his theory and expounded it in lengthy
contributions to the press. Everybody corrected and supplemented the
inquiry of the examining magistrate; and all on the word of a child, on
the word of Isidore Beautrelet, a sixth-form schoolboy at the Lycée
Janson-de-Sailly!
For really, it had to be admitted, the complete elements of the truth
were now in everybody’s possession. What did the mystery consist of?
They knew the hiding-place where Arsène Lupin had taken refuge and lain
a-dying; there was no doubt about it: Dr. Delattre, who continued to
plead professional secrecy and refused to give evidence, nevertheless
confessed to his intimate friends—who lost no time in blabbing—that he
really had been taken to a crypt to attend a wounded man whom his
confederates introduced to him by the name of Arsène Lupin. And, as the
corpse of Étienne de Vaudreix was found in that same crypt and as the
said Étienne de Vaudreix was none other than Arsène Lupin—as the
official examination went to show—all this provided an additional
proof, if one were needed, of the identity of Arsène Lupin and the
wounded man. Therefore, with Lupin dead and Mlle. de Saint-Véran’s body
recognized by the curb-bracelet on her wrist, the tragedy was finished.
It was not. Nobody thought that it was, because Beautrelet had said the
contrary. Nobody knew in what respect it was not finished, but, on the
word of the young man, the mystery remained complete. The evidence of
the senses did not prevail against the statement of a Beautrelet. There
was something which people did not know, and of that something they
were convinced that he was in position to supply a triumphant
explanation.
It is easy, therefore, to imagine the anxiety with which, at first,
people awaited the bulletins issued by the two Dieppe doctors to whose
care the Comte de Gesvres entrusted his patient; the distress that
prevailed during the first few days, when his life was thought to be in
danger; and the enthusiasm of the morning when the newspapers announced
that there was no further cause for fear. The least details excited the
crowd. People wept at the thought of Beautrelet nursed by his old
father, who had been hurriedly summoned by telegram, and they also
admired the devotion of Mlle. Suzanne de Gesvres, who spent night after
night by the wounded lad’s bedside.
Next came a swift and glad convalescence. At last, the public were
about to know! They would know what Beautrelet had promised to reveal
to M. Filleul and the decisive words which the knife of the would-be
assassin had prevented him from uttering! And they would also know
everything, outside the tragedy itself, that remained impenetrable or
inaccessible to the efforts of the police.
With Beautrelet free and cured of his wound, one could hope for some
certainty regarding Harlington, Arsène Lupin’s mysterious accomplice,
who was still detained at the Santé prison. One would learn what had
become, after the crime, of Brédoux the clerk, that other accomplice,
whose daring was really terrifying.
With Beautrelet free, one could also form a precise idea concerning the
disappearance of Ganimard and the kidnapping of Shears. How was it
possible for two attempts of this kind to take place? Neither the
English detectives nor their French colleagues possessed the slightest
clue on the subject. On Whit-Sunday, Ganimard did not come home, nor on
the Monday either, nor during the five weeks that followed. In London,
on Whit-Monday, Holmlock Shears took a cab at eight o’clock in the
evening to drive to the station. He had hardly stepped in, when he
tried to alight, probably feeling a presentiment of danger. But two men
jumped into the hansom, one on either side, flung him back on the seat
and kept him there between them, or rather under them. All this
happened in sight of nine or ten witnesses, who had no time to
interfere. The cab drove off at a gallop. And, after that, nothing.
Nobody knew anything.
Perhaps, also, Beautrelet would be able to give the complete
explanation of the document, the mysterious paper to which. Brédoux,
the magistrate’s clerk, attached enough importance to recover it, with
blows of the knife, from the person in whose possession it was. The
problem of the Hollow Needle it was called, by the countless solvers of
riddles who, with their eyes bent upon the figures and dots, strove to
read a meaning into them. The Hollow Needle! What a bewildering
conjunction of two simple words! What an incomprehensible question was
set by that scrap of paper, whose very origin and manufacture were
unknown! The Hollow Needle! Was it a meaningless expression, the puzzle
of a schoolboy scribbling with pen and ink on the corner of a page? Or
were they two magic words which could compel the whole great adventure
of Lupin the great adventurer to assume its true significance? Nobody
knew.
But the public soon would know. For some days, the papers had been
announcing the approaching arrival of Beautrelet. The struggle was on
the point of recommencing; and, this time, it would be implacable on
the part of the young man, who was burning to take his revenge. And, as
it happened, my attention, just then, was drawn to his name, printed in
capitals. The _Grand Journal_ headed its front page with the following
paragraph:
_We have persuaded_
M. ISIDORE BEAUTRELET
_to give us the first right of printing his revelations. To-morrow,
Tuesday, before the police themselves are informed, the_ Grand Journal
_will publish the whole truth of the Ambrumésy mystery_.
“That’s interesting, eh? What do you think of it, my dear chap?”
I started from my chair. There was some one sitting beside me, some one
I did not know. I cast my eyes round for a weapon. But, as my visitor’s
attitude appeared quite inoffensive, I restrained myself and went up to
him.
He was a young man with strongly-marked features, long, fair hair and a
short, tawny beard, divided into two points. His dress suggested the
dark clothes of an English clergyman; and his whole person, for that
matter, wore an air of austerity and gravity that inspired respect.
“Who are you?” I asked. And, as he did not reply, I repeated, “Who are
you? How did you get in? What are you here for?”
He looked at me and said:
“Don’t you know me?”
“No—no!”
“Oh, that’s really curious! Just search your memory—one of your
friends—a friend of a rather special kind—however—”
I caught him smartly by the arm:
“You lie! You lie! No, you’re not the man you say you are—it’s not
true.”
“Then why are you thinking of that man rather than another?” he asked,
with a laugh.
Oh, that laugh! That bright and clear young laugh, whose amusing irony
had so often contributed to my diversion! I shivered. Could it be?
“No, no,” I protested, with a sort of terror. “It cannot be.”
“It can’t be I, because I’m dead, eh?” he retorted. “And because you
don’t believe in ghosts.” He laughed again. “Am I the sort of man who
dies? Do you think I would die like that, shot in the back by a girl?
Really, you misjudge me! As though I would ever consent to such a death
as that!”
“So it is you!” I stammered, still incredulous and yet greatly excited.
“So it is you! I can’t manage to recognize you.”
“In that case,” he said, gaily, “I am quite easy. If the only man to
whom I have shown myself in my real aspect fails to know me to-day,
then everybody who will see me henceforth as I am to-day is bound not
to know me either, when he sees me in my real aspect—if, indeed, I have
a real aspect—”
I recognized his voice, now that he was no longer changing its tone,
and I recognized his eyes also and the expression of his face and his
whole attitude and his very being, through the counterfeit appearance
in which he had shrouded it:
“Arsène Lupin!” I muttered.
“Yes, Arsène Lupin!” he cried, rising from his chair. “The one and only
Arsène Lupin, returned from the realms of darkness, since it appears
that I expired and passed away in a crypt! Arsène Lupin, alive and
kicking, in the full exercise of his will, happy and free and more than
ever resolved to enjoy that happy freedom in a world where hitherto he
has received nothing but favors and privileges!”
It was my turn to laugh:
“Well, it’s certainly you, and livelier this time than on the day when
I had the pleasure of seeing you, last year—I congratulate you.”
I was alluding to his last visit, the visit following on the famous
adventure of the diadem,[1] his interrupted marriage, his flight with
Sonia Kirchnoff and the Russian girl’s horrible death. On that day, I
had seen an Arsène Lupin whom I did not know, weak, down-hearted, with
eyes tired with weeping, seeking for a little sympathy and affection.
[1] _Arsène Lupin_, play in three acts and four scenes, by Maurice
Leblanc and Francis de Croisset.]
“Be quiet,” he said. “The past is far away.”
“It was a year ago,” I observed.
“It was ten years ago,” he declared. “Arsène Lupin’s years count for
ten times as much as another man’s.”
I did not insist and, changing the conversation:
“How did you get in?”
“Why, how do you think? Through the door, of course. Then, as I saw
nobody, I walked across the drawing room and out by the balcony, and
here I am.”
“Yes, but the key of the door—?”
“There are no doors for me, as you know. I wanted your flat and I came
in.”
“It is at your disposal. Am I to leave you?”
“Oh, not at all! You won’t be in the way. In fact, I can promise you an
interesting evening.”
“Are you expecting some one?”
“Yes. I have given him an appointment here at ten o’clock.” He took out
his watch. “It is ten now. If the telegram reached him, he ought to be
here soon.”
The front-door bell rang.
“What did I tell you? No, don’t trouble to get up: I’ll go.”
With whom on earth could he have made an appointment? And what sort of
scene was I about to assist at: dramatic or comic? For Lupin himself to
consider it worthy of interest, the situation must be somewhat
exceptional.
He returned in a moment and stood back to make way for a young man,
tall and thin and very pale in the face.
Without a word and with a certain solemnity about his movements that
made me feel ill at ease. Lupin switched on all the electric lamps, one
after the other, till the room was flooded with light. Then the two men
looked at each other, exchanged profound and penetrating glances, as
if, with all the effort of their gleaming eyes, they were trying to
pierce into each other’s souls.
It was an impressive sight to see them thus, grave and silent. But who
could the newcomer be?
I was on the point of guessing the truth, through his resemblance to a
photograph which had recently appeared in the papers, when Lupin turned
to me:
“My dear chap, let me introduce M. Isidore Beautrelet.” And, addressing
the young man, he continued, “I have to thank you, M. Beautrelet,
first, for being good enough, on receipt of a letter from me, to
postpone your revelations until after this interview and, secondly, for
granting me this interview with so good a grace.”
Beautrelet smiled:
“Allow me to remark that my good grace consists, above all, in obeying
your orders. The threat which you made to me in the letter in question
was the more peremptory in being aimed not at me, but at my father.”
“My word,” said Lupin laughing, “we must do the best we can and make
use of the means of action vouchsafed to us. I knew by experience that
your own safety was indifferent to you, seeing that you resisted the
arguments of Master Brédoux. There remained your father—your father for
whom you have a great affection—I played on that string.”
“And here I am,” said Beautrelet, approvingly.
I motioned them to be seated. They consented and Lupin resumed, in that
tone of imperceptible banter which is all his own:
“In any case, M. Beautrelet, if you will not accept my thanks, you will
at least not refuse my apologies.”
“Apologies! Bless my soul, what for?”
“For the brutality which Master Brédoux showed you.”
“I confess that the act surprised me. It was not Lupin’s usual way of
behaving. A stab—”
“I assure you I had no hand in it. Brédoux is a new recruit. My
friends, during the time that they had the management of our affairs,
thought that it might be useful to win over to our cause the clerk of
the magistrate himself who was conducting the inquiry.”
“Your friends were right.”
“Brédoux, who was specially attached to your person, was, in fact, most
valuable to us. But, with the ardor peculiar to any neophyte who wishes
to distinguish himself, he pushed his zeal too far and thwarted my
plans by permitting himself, on his own initiative, to strike you a
blow.”
“Oh, it was a little accident!”
“Not at all, not at all! And I have reprimanded him severely! I am
bound, however, to say in his favor that he was taken unawares by the
really unexpected rapidity of your investigation. If you had only left
us a few hours longer, you would have escaped that unpardonable
attempt.”
“And I should doubtless have enjoyed the enormous advantage of
undergoing the same fate as M. Ganimard and Mr. Holmlock Shears?”
“Exactly,” said Lupin, laughing heartily. “And I should not have known
the cruel terrors which your wound caused me. I have had an atrocious
time because of it, believe me, and, at this moment, your pallor fills
me with all the stings of remorse. Can you ever forgive me?”
“The proof of confidence which you have shown me in delivering yourself
unconditionally into my hands—it would have been so easy for me to
bring a few of Ganimard’s friends with me—that proof of confidence
wipes out everything.”
Was he speaking seriously? I confess frankly that I was greatly
perplexed. The struggle between the two men was beginning in a manner
which I was simply unable to understand. I had been present at the
first meeting between Lupin and Holmlock Shears, in the café near the
Gare Montparnesse,[2] and I could not help recalling the haughty
carriage of the two combatants, the terrific clash of their pride under
the politeness of their manners, the hard blows which they dealt each
other, their feints, their arrogance.
[2] _Arsène Lupin versus Holmlock Shears_, by Maurice Leblanc.
Here, it was quite different. Lupin, it is true, had not changed; he
exhibited the same tactics, the same crafty affability. But what a
strange adversary he had come upon! Was it even an adversary? Really,
he had neither the tone of one nor the appearance. Very calm, but with
a real calmness, not one assumed to cloak the passion of a man
endeavoring to restrain himself; very polite, but without exaggeration;
smiling, but without chaff, he presented the most perfect contrast to
Arsène Lupin, a contrast so perfect even that, to my mind, Lupin
appeared as much perplexed as myself.
No, there was no doubt about it: in the presence of that frail
stripling, with cheeks smooth as a girl’s and candid and charming eyes,
Lupin was losing his ordinary self-assurance. Several times over, I
observed traces of embarrassment in him. He hesitated, did not attack
frankly, wasted time in mawkish and affected phrases.
It also looked as though he wanted something. He seemed to be seeking,
waiting. What for? Some aid?
There was a fresh ring of the bell. He himself ran and opened the door.
He returned with a letter:
“Will you allow me, gentlemen?” he asked.
He opened the letter. It contained a telegram. He read it—and became as
though transformed. His face lit up, his figure righted itself and I
saw the veins on his forehead swell. It was the athlete who once more
stood before me, the ruler, sure of himself, master of events and
master of persons. He spread the telegram on the table and, striking it
with his fist, exclaimed:
“Now, M. Beautrelet, it’s you and I!”
Beautrelet adopted a listening attitude and Lupin began, in measured,
but harsh and masterful tones:
“Let us throw off the mask—what say you?—and have done with
hypocritical compliments. We are two enemies, who know exactly what to
think of each other; we act toward each other as enemies; and therefore
we ought to treat with each other as enemies.”
“To treat?” echoed Beautrelet, in a voice of surprise.
“Yes, to treat. I did not use that word at random and I repeat it, in
spite of the effort, the great effort, which it costs me. This is the
first time I have employed it to an adversary. But also, I may as well
tell you at once, it is the last. Make the most of it. I shall not
leave this flat without a promise from you. If I do, it means war.”
Beautrelet seemed more and more surprised. He said very prettily:
“I was not prepared for this—you speak so funnily! It’s so different
from what I expected! Yes, I thought you were not a bit like that! Why
this display of anger? Why use threats? Are we enemies because
circumstances bring us into opposition? Enemies? Why?”
Lupin appeared a little out of countenance, but he snarled and, leaning
over the boy:
“Listen to me, youngster,” he said. “It’s not a question of picking
one’s words. It’s a question of a fact, a positive, indisputable fact;
and that fact is this: in all the past ten years, I have not yet
knocked up against an adversary of your capacity. With Ganimard and
Holmlock Shears I played as if they were children. With you, I am
obliged to defend myself, I will say more, to retreat. Yes, at this
moment, you and I well know that I must look upon myself as worsted in
the fight. Isidore Beautrelet has got the better of Arsène Lupin. My
plans are upset. What I tried to leave in the dark you have brought
into the full light of day. You annoy me, you stand in my way. Well,
I’ve had enough of it—Brédoux told you so to no purpose. I now tell you
so again; and I insist upon it, so that you may take it to heart: I’ve
had enough of it!”
Beautrelet nodded his head:
“Yes, but what do you want?”
“Peace! Each of us minding his own business, keeping to his own side!”
“That is to say, you free to continue your burglaries undisturbed, I
free to return to my studies.”
“Your studies—anything you please—I don’t care. But you must leave me
in peace—I want peace.”
“How can I trouble it now?”
Lupin seized his hand violently:
“You know quite well! Don’t pretend not to know. You are at this moment
in possession of a secret to which I attach the highest importance.
This secret you were free to guess, but you have no right to give it to
the public.”
“Are you sure that I know it?”
“You know it, I am certain: day by day, hour by hour, I have followed
your train of thought and the progress of your investigations. At the
very moment when Brédoux struck you, you were about to tell all.
Subsequently, you delayed your revelations, out of solicitude for your
father. But they are now promised to this paper here. The article is
written. It will be set up in an hour. It will appear to-morrow.”
“Quite right.”
Lupin rose, and slashing the air with his hand,
“It shall not appear!” he cried.
“It shall appear!” said Beautrelet, starting up in his turn.
At last, the two men were standing up to each other. I received the
impression of a shock, as if they had seized each other round the body.
Beautrelet seemed to burn with a sudden energy. It was as though a
spark had kindled within him a group of new emotions: pluck,
self-respect, the passion of fighting, the intoxication of danger. As
for Lupin, I read in the radiance of his glance the joy of the duellist
who at length encounters the sword of his hated rival.
“Is the article in the printer’s hands?”
“Not yet.”
“Have you it there—on you?”
“No fear! I shouldn’t have it by now, in that case!”
“Then—”
“One of the assistant editors has it, in a sealed envelope. If I am not
at the office by midnight, he will have set it up.”
“Oh, the scoundrel!” muttered Lupin. “He has provided for everything!”
His anger was increasing, visibly and frightfully. Beautrelet chuckled,
jeering in his turn, carried away by his success.
“Stop that, you brat!” roared Lupin. “You’re forgetting who I am—and
that, if I wished—upon my word, he’s daring to laugh!”
A great silence fell between them. Then Lupin stepped forward and, in
muttered tones, with his eyes on Beautrelet’s:
“You shall go straight to the _Grand Journal_.”
“No.”
“Tear up your article.”
“No.”
“See the editor.”
“No.”
“Tell him you made a mistake.”
“No.”
“And write him another article, in which you will give the official
version of the Ambrumésy mystery, the one which every one has
accepted.”
“No.”
Lupin took up a steel ruler that lay on my desk and broke it in two
without an effort. His pallor was terrible to see. He wiped away the
beads of perspiration that stood on his forehead. He, who had never
known his wishes resisted, was being maddened by the obstinacy of this
child. He pressed his two hands on Beautrelet’s shoulder and,
emphasizing every syllable, continued:
“You shall do as I tell you, Beautrelet. You shall say that your latest
discoveries have convinced you of my death, that there is not the least
doubt about it. You shall say so because I wish it, because it has to
be believed that I am dead. You shall say so, above all, because, if
you do not say so—”
“Because, if I do not say so—?”
“Your father will be kidnapped to-night, as Ganimard and Holmlock
Shears were.”
Beautrelet gave a smile.
“Don’t laugh—answer!”
“My answer is that I am very sorry to disappoint you, but I have
promised to speak and I shall speak.”
“Speak in the sense which I have told you.”
“I shall speak the truth,” cried Beautrelet, eagerly. “It is something
which you can’t understand, the pleasure, the need, rather, of saying
the thing that is and saying it aloud. The truth is here, in this brain
which has guessed it and discovered it; and it will come out, all naked
and quivering. The article, therefore, will be printed as I wrote it.
The world shall know that Lupin is alive and shall know the reason why
he wished to be considered dead. The world shall know all.” And he
added, calmly, “And my father shall not be kidnapped.”
Once again, they were both silent, with their eyes still fixed upon
each other. They watched each other. Their swords were engaged up to
the hilt. And it was like the heavy silence that goes before the mortal
blow. Which of the two was to strike it?
Lupin said, between his teeth:
“Failing my instructions to the contrary, two of my friends have orders
to enter your father’s room to-night, at three o’clock in the morning,
to seize him and carry him off to join Ganimard and Holmlock Shears.”
A burst of shrill laughter interrupted him:
“Why, you highwayman, don’t you understand,” cried Beautrelet, “that I
have taken my precautions? So you think that I am innocent enough, ass
enough, to have sent my father home to his lonely little house in the
open country!” Oh, the gay, bantering laughter that lit up the boy’s
face! It was a new sort of laugh on his lips, a laugh that showed the
influence of Lupin himself. And the familiar form of address which he
adopted placed him at once on his adversary’s level. He continued:
“You see, Lupin, your great fault is to believe your schemes
infallible. You proclaim yourself beaten, do you? What humbug! You are
convinced that you will always win the day in the end—and you forget
that others can have their little schemes, too. Mine is a very simple
one, my friend.”
It was delightful to hear him talk. He walked up and down, with his
hands in his pockets and with the easy swagger of a boy teasing a caged
beast. Really, at this moment, he was revenging, with the most terrible
revenges, all the victims of the great adventurer. And he concluded:
“Lupin, my father is not in Savoy. He is at the other end of France, in
the centre of a big town, guarded by twenty of our friends, who have
orders not to lose sight of him until our battle is over. Would you
like details? He is at Cherbourg, in the house of one of the keepers of
the arsenal. And remember that the arsenal is closed at night and that
no one is allowed to enter it by day, unless he carries an
authorization and is accompanied by a guide.”
He stopped in front of Lupin and defied him, like a child making faces
at his playmate:
“What do you say to that, master?”
For some minutes, Lupin had stood motionless. Not a muscle of his face
had moved. What were his thoughts? Upon what action was he resolving?
To any one knowing the fierce violence of his pride the only possible
solution was the total, immediate, final collapse of his adversary. His
fingers twitched. For a second, I had a feeling that he was about to
throw himself upon the boy and wring his neck.
“What do you say to that, master?” Beautrelet repeated.
Lupin took up the telegram that lay on the table, held it out and said,
very calmly:
“Here, baby, read that.”
Beautrelet became serious, suddenly, impressed by the gentleness of the
movement. He unfolded the paper and, at once, raising his eyes,
murmured:
“What does it mean? I don’t understand.”
“At any rate, you understand the first word,” said Lupin, “the first
word of the telegram—that is to say, the name of the place from which
it was sent—look—‘Cherbourg.’”
“Yes—yes,” stammered Beautrelet. “Yes—I understand—‘Cherbourg’-and
then?”
“And then?—I should think the rest is quite plain: ‘Removal of luggage
finished. Friends left with it and will wait instructions till eight
morning. All well.’ Is there anything there that seems obscure? The
word ‘luggage’? Pooh, you wouldn’t have them write ‘M. Beautrelet,
senior’! What then? The way in which the operation was performed? The
miracle by which your father was taken out of Cherbourg Arsenal, in
spite of his twenty body-guards? Pooh, it’s as easy as A B C! And the
fact remains that the luggage has been dispatched. What do you say to
that, baby?”
With all his tense being, with all his exasperated energy, Isidore
tried to preserve a good countenance. But I saw his lips quiver, his
jaw shrink, his eyes vainly strive to fix upon a point. He lisped a few
words, then was silent and, suddenly, gave way and, with his hands
before his face, burst into loud sobs:
“Oh, father! Father!”
An unexpected result, which was certainly the collapse which Lupin’s
pride demanded, but also something more, something infinitely touching
and infinitely artless. Lupin gave a movement of annoyance and took up
his hat, as though this unaccustomed display of sentiment were too much
for him. But, on reaching the door, he stopped, hesitated and then
returned, slowly, step by step.
The soft sound of the sobs rose like the sad wailing of a little child
overcome with grief. The lad’s shoulders marked the heart-rending
rhythm. Tears appeared through the crossed fingers. Lupin leaned
forward and, without touching Beautrelet, said, in a voice that had not
the least tone of pleasantry, nor even of the offensive pity of the
victor:
“Don’t cry, youngster. This is one of those blows which a man must
expect when he rushes headlong into the fray, as you did. The worst
disasters lie in wait for him. The destiny of fighters will have it so.
We must suffer it as bravely as we can.” Then, with a sort of
gentleness, he continued, “You were right, you see: we are not enemies.
I have known it for long. From the very first, I felt for you, for the
intelligent creature that you are, an involuntary sympathy—and
admiration. And that is why I wanted to say this to you—don’t be
offended, whatever you do: I should be extremely sorry to offend
you—but I must say it: well, give up struggling against me. I am not
saying this out of vanity—nor because I despise you—but, you see, the
struggle is too unequal. You do not know—nobody knows all the resources
which I have at my command. Look here, this secret of the Hollow Needle
which you are trying so vainly to unravel: suppose, for a moment, that
it is a formidable, inexhaustible treasure—or else an invisible,
prodigious, fantastic refuge—or both perhaps. Think of the superhuman
power which I must derive from it! And you do not know, either, all the
resources which I have within myself—all that my will and my
imagination enable me to undertake and to undertake successfully. Only
think that my whole life—ever since I was born, I might almost say—has
tended toward the same aim, that I worked like a convict before
becoming what I am and to realize, in its perfection, the type which I
wished to create—which I have succeeded in creating. That being so—what
can you do? At that very moment when you think that victory lies within
your grasp, it will escape you—there will be something of which you
have not thought—a trifle—a grain of sand which I shall have put in the
right place, unknown to you. I entreat you, give up—I should be obliged
to hurt you; and the thought distresses me.” And, placing his hand on
the boy’s forehead, he repeated, “Once more, youngster, give up. I
should only hurt you. Who knows if the trap into which you will
inevitably fall has not already opened under your footsteps?”
Beautrelet uncovered his face. He was no longer crying. Had he heard
Lupin’s words? One might have doubted it, judging by his inattentive
air.
For two or three minutes, he was silent. He seemed to weigh the
decision which he was about to take, to examine the reasons for and
against, to count up the favorable and unfavorable chances. At last, he
said to Lupin:
“If I change the sense of the article, if I confirm the version of your
death and if I undertake never to contradict the false version which I
shall have sanctioned, do you swear that my father will be free?”
“I swear it. My friends have taken your father by motor car to another
provincial town. At seven o’clock to-morrow morning, if the article in
the _Grand Journal_ is what I want it to be, I shall telephone to them
and they will restore your father to liberty.”
“Very well,” said Beautrelet. “I submit to your conditions.”
Quickly, as though he saw no object in prolonging the conversation
after accepting his defeat, he rose, took his hat, bowed to me, bowed
to Lupin and went out. Lupin watched him go, listened to the sound of
the door closing and muttered:
“Poor little beggar!”
At eight o’clock the next morning, I sent my man out to buy the _Grand
Journal_. It was twenty minutes before he brought me a copy, most of
the kiosks being already sold out.
I unfolded the paper with feverish hands. Beautrelet’s article appeared
on the front page. I give it as it stood and as it was quoted in the
press of the whole world:
THE AMBRUMÉSY MYSTERY
I do not intend in these few sentences to set out in detail the mental
processes and the investigations that have enabled me to reconstruct
the tragedy—I should say the twofold tragedy—of Ambrumésy. In my
opinion, this sort of work and the judgments which it entails,
deductions, inductions, analyses and so on, are only interesting in a
minor degree and, in any case, are highly commonplace. No, I shall
content myself with setting forth the two leading ideas which I
followed; and, if I do that, it will be seen that, in so setting them
forth and in solving the two problems which they raise, I shall have
told the story just as it happened, in the exact order of the different
incidents.
It may be said that some of these incidents are not proved and that I
leave too large a field to conjecture. That is quite true. But, in my
view, my theory is founded upon a sufficiently large number of proved
facts to be able to say that even those facts which are not proved must
follow from the strict logic of events. The stream is so often lost
under the pebbly bed: it is nevertheless the same stream that reappears
at intervals and mirrors back the blue sky.
The first riddle that confronted me, a riddle not in detail, but as a
whole, was how came it that Lupin, mortally wounded, one might say,
managed to live for five or six weeks without nursing, medicine or
food, at the bottom of a dark hole?
Let us start at the beginning. On Thursday the sixteenth of April, at
four o’clock in the morning, Arsène Lupin, surprised in the middle of
one of his most daring burglaries, runs away by the path leading to the
ruins and drops down shot. He drags himself painfully along, falls
again and picks himself up in the desperate hope of reaching the
chapel. The chapel contains a crypt, the existence of which he has
discovered by accident. If he can burrow there, he may be saved. By
dint of an effort, he approaches it, he is but a few yards away, when a
sound of footsteps approaches. Harassed and lost, he lets himself go.
The enemy arrives. It is Mlle. Raymonde de Saint-Véran.
This is the prologue or rather the first scene of the drama.
What happened between them? This is the easier to guess inasmuch as the
sequel of the adventure gives us all the necessary clues. At the girl’s
feet lies a wounded man, exhausted by suffering, who will be captured
in two minutes. _This man has been wounded by herself_. Will she also
give him up?
If he is Jean Daval’s murderer, yes, she will let destiny take its
course. But, in quick sentences, he tells her the truth about this
awful murder committed by her uncle, M. de Gesvres. She believes him.
What will she do?
Nobody can see them. The footman Victor is watching the little door.
The other, Albert, posted at the drawing-room window, has lost sight of
both of them. _Will she give up the man she has wounded?_
The girl is carried away by a movement of irresistible pity, which any
woman will understand. Instructed by Lupin, with a few movements she
binds up the wound with his handkerchief, to avoid the marks which the
blood would leave. Then, with the aid of the key which he gives her,
she opens the door of the chapel. He enters, supported by the girl. She
locks the door again and walks away. Albert arrives.
If the chapel had been visited at that moment or at least during the
next few minutes, before Lupin had had time to recover his strength, to
raise the flagstone and disappear by the stairs leading to the crypt,
he would have been taken. But this visit did not take place until six
hours later and then only in the most superficial way. As it is, Lupin
is saved; and saved by whom? By the girl who very nearly killed him.
Thenceforth, whether she wishes it or no, Mlle. de Saint-Véran is his
accomplice. Not only is she no longer able to give him up, but she is
obliged to continue her work, else the wounded man will perish in the
shelter in which she has helped to conceal him. Therefore she
continues.
For that matter, if her feminine instinct makes the task a compulsory
one, it also makes it easy. She is full of artifice, she foresees and
forestalls everything. It is she who gives the examining magistrate a
false description of Arsène Lupin (the reader will remember the
difference of opinion on this subject between the cousins). It is she,
obviously, who, thanks to certain signs which I do not know of,
suspects an accomplice of Lupin’s in the driver of the fly. She warns
him. She informs him of the urgent need of an operation. It is she, no
doubt, who substitutes one cap for the other. It is she who causes the
famous letter to be written in which she is personally threatened. How,
after that, is it possible to suspect her?
It is she, who at that moment when I was about to confide my first
impressions to the examining magistrate, pretends to have seen me, the
day before, in the copsewood, alarms M. Filleul on my score and reduces
me to silence: a dangerous move, no doubt, because it arouses my
attention and directs it against the person who assails me with an
accusation which I know to be false; but an efficacious move, because
the most important thing of all is to gain time and close my lips.
Lastly, it is she who, during forty days, feeds Lupin, brings him his
medicine (the chemist at Ouville will produce the prescriptions which
he made up for Mlle. de Saint-Véran), nurses him, dresses his wound,
watches over him _and cures him_.
Here we have the first of our two problems solved, at the same time
that the Ambrumésy mystery is set forth. Arsène Lupin found, close at
hand, in the château itself, the assistance which was indispensable to
him in order, first, not to be discovered and, secondly, to live.
He now lives. And we come to the second problem, corresponding with the
second Ambrumésy mystery, the study of which served me as a conducting
medium. Why does Lupin, alive, free, at the head of his gang,
omnipotent as before, why does Lupin make desperate efforts, efforts
with which I am constantly coming into collision, to force the idea of
his death upon the police and the public?
We must remember that Mlle. de Saint-Véran was a very pretty girl. The
photographs reproduced in the papers after her disappearance give but
an imperfect notion of her beauty. That follows which was bound to
follow. Lupin, seeing this lovely girl daily for five or six weeks,
longing for her presence when she is not there, subjected to her charm
and grace when she is there, inhaling the cool perfume of her breath
when she bends over him, Lupin becomes enamored of his nurse. Gratitude
turns to love, admiration to passion. She is his salvation, but she is
also the joy of his eyes, the dream of his lonely hours, his light, his
hope, his very life.
He respects her sufficiently not to take advantage of the girl’s
devotion and not to make use of her to direct his confederates. There
is, in fact, a certain lack of decision apparent in the acts of the
gang. But he loves her also, his scruples weaken and, as Mlle. de
Saint-Véran refuses to be touched by a love that offends her, as she
relaxes her visits when they become less necessary, as she ceases them
entirely on the day when he is cured—desperate, maddened by grief, he
takes a terrible resolve. He leaves his lair, prepares his stroke and,
on Saturday the sixth of June, assisted by his accomplices, he carries
off the girl.
This is not all. The abduction must not be known. All search, all
surmises, all hope, even, must be cut short. Mlle. de Saint-Véran must
pass for dead. There is a mock murder: proofs are supplied for the
police inquiries. There is doubt about the crime, a crime, for that
matter, not unexpected, a crime foretold by the accomplices, a crime
perpetrated to revenge the chief’s death. And, through this very
fact—observe the marvelous ingenuity of the conception—through this
very fact, the belief in this death is, so to speak, stimulated.
It is not enough to suggest a belief; it is necessary to compel a
certainty. Lupin foresees my interference. I am sure to guess the
trickery of the chapel. I am sure to discover the crypt. And, as the
crypt will be empty, the whole scaffolding will come to the ground.
_The crypt shall not be empty._
In the same way, the death of Mlle. de Saint-Véran will not be
definite, unless the sea gives up her corpse.
_The sea shall give up the corpse of Mlle. de Saint-Véran._
The difficulty is tremendous. The double obstacle seems insurmountable.
Yes, to any one but Lupin, but not to Lupin.
As he had foreseen, I guess the trickery of the chapel, I discover the
crypt and I go down into the lair where Lupin has taken refuge. His
corpse is there!
Any person who had admitted the death of Lupin as possible would have
been baffled. But I had not admitted this eventuality for an instant
(first, by intuition and, secondly, by reasoning). Pretense thereupon
became useless and every scheme vain. I said to myself at once that the
block of stone disturbed by the pickaxe had been placed there with a
very curious exactness, that the least knock was bound to make it fall
and that, in falling, it must inevitably reduce the head of the false
Arsène Lupin to pulp, in such a way as to make it utterly
irrecognizable.
Another discovery: half an hour later, I hear that the body of Mlle. de
Saint-Véran has been found on the rocks at Dieppe—or rather a body
which is considered to be Mlle. de Saint-Véran’s, for the reason that
the arm has a bracelet similar to one of that young lady’s bracelets.
This, however, is the only mark of identity, for the corpse is
irrecognizable.
Thereupon I remember and I understand. A few days earlier, I happened
to read in a number of the _Vigie de Dieppe_ that a young American
couple staying at Envermeu had committed suicide by taking poison and
that their bodies had disappeared on the very night of the death. I
hasten to Envermeu. The story is true, I am told, except in so far as
concerns the disappearance, because the brothers of the victims came to
claim the corpses and took them away after the usual formalities. The
name of these brothers, no doubt, was Arsène Lupin & Co.
Consequently, the thing is proved. We know why Lupin shammed the murder
of the girl and spread the rumor of his own death. He is in love and
does not wish it known. And, to reach his ends, he shrinks from
nothing, he even undertakes that incredible theft of the two corpses
which he needs in order to impersonate himself and Mlle. de
Saint-Véran. In this way, he will be at ease. No one can disturb him.
No one will ever suspect the truth which he wishes to suppress.
No one? Yes—three adversaries, at the most, might conceive doubts:
Ganimard, whose arrival is hourly expected; Holmlock Shears, who is
about to cross the Channel; and I, who am on the spot. This constitutes
a threefold danger. He removes it. He kidnaps Ganimard. He kidnaps
Holmlock Shears. He has me stabbed by Brédoux.
One point alone remains obscure. Why was Lupin so fiercely bent upon
snatching the document about the Hollow Needle from me? He surely did
not imagine that, by taking it away, he could wipe out from my memory
the text of the five lines of which it consists! Then why? Did he fear
that the character of the paper itself, or some other clue, could give
me a hint?
Be that as it may, this is the truth of the Ambrumésy mystery. I repeat
that conjecture plays a certain part in the explanation which I offer,
even as it played a great part in my personal investigation. But, if
one waited for proofs and facts to fight Lupin, one would run a great
risk either of waiting forever or else of discovering proofs and facts
carefully prepared by Lupin, which would lead in a direction
immediately opposite to the object in view. I feel confident that the
facts, when they are known, will confirm my surmise in every respect.
So Isidore Beautrelet, mastered for a moment by Arsène Lupin,
distressed by the abduction of his father and resigned to defeat,
Isidore Beautrelet, in the end, was unable to persuade himself to keep
silence. The truth was too beautiful and too curious, the proofs which
he was able to produce were too logical and too conclusive for him to
consent to misrepresent it. The whole world was waiting for his
revelations. He spoke.
On the evening of the day on which his article appeared, the newspapers
announced the kidnapping of M. Beautrelet, senior. Isidore was informed
of it by a telegram from Cherbourg, which reached him at three o’clock.
CHAPTER FIVE
ON THE TRACK
Young Beautrelet was stunned by the violence of the blow. As a matter
of fact, although, in publishing his article, he had obeyed one of
those irresistible impulses which make a man despise every
consideration of prudence, he had never really believed in the
possibility of an abduction. His precautions had been too thorough. The
friends at Cherbourg not only had instructions to guard and protect
Beautrelet the elder: they were also to watch his comings and goings,
never to let him walk out alone and not even to hand him a single
letter without first opening it. No, there was no danger. Lupin,
wishing to gain time, was trying to intimidate his adversary.
The blow, therefore, was almost unexpected; and Isidore, because he was
powerless to act, felt the pain of the shock during the whole of the
remainder of the day. One idea alone supported him: that of leaving
Paris, going down there, seeing for himself what had happened and
resuming the offensive.
He telegraphed to Cherbourg. He was at Saint-Lazare a little before
nine. A few minutes after, he was steaming out of the station in the
Normandy express.
It was not until an hour later, when he mechanically unfolded a
newspaper which he had bought on the platform, that he became aware of
the letter by which Lupin indirectly replied to his article of that
morning:
_To the Editor of the Grand Journal._
SIR: I cannot pretend but that my modest personality, which would
certainly have passed unnoticed in more heroic times, has acquired a
certain prominence in the dull and feeble period in which we live. But
there is a limit beyond which the morbid curiosity of the crowd cannot
go without becoming indecently indiscreet. If the walls that surround
our private lives be not respected, what is to safeguard the rights of
the citizen?
Will those who differ plead the higher interest of truth? An empty
pretext in so far as I am concerned, because the truth is known and I
raise no difficulty about making an official confession of the truth in
writing. Yes, Mlle. de Saint-Véran is alive. Yes, I love her. Yes, I
have the mortification not to be loved by her. Yes, the results of the
boy Beautrelet’s inquiry are wonderful in their precision and accuracy.
Yes, we agree on every point. There is no riddle left. There is no
mystery. Well, then, what?
Injured to the very depths of my soul, bleeding still from cruel
wounds, I ask that my more intimate feelings and secret hopes may no
longer be delivered to the malevolence of the public. I ask for peace,
the peace which I need to conquer the affection of Mlle. de Saint-Véran
and to wipe out from her memory the thousand little injuries which she
has had to suffer at the hands of her uncle and cousin—this has not
been told—because of her position as a poor relation. Mlle. de
Saint-Véran will forget this hateful past. All that she can desire,
were it the fairest jewel in the world, were it the most unattainable
treasure, I shall lay at her feet. She will be happy. She will love me.
But, if I am to succeed, once more, I require peace. That is why I lay
down my arms and hold out the olive-branch to my enemies—while warning
them, with every magnanimity on my part, that a refusal on theirs might
bring down upon them the gravest consequences.
One word more on the subject of Mr. Harlington. This name conceals the
identity of an excellent fellow, who is secretary to Cooley, the
American millionaire, and instructed by him to lay hands upon every
object of ancient art in Europe which it is possible to discover. His
evil star brought him into touch with my friend Étienne de Vaudreix,
_alias_ Arsène Lupin, _alias_ myself. He learnt, in this way, that a
certain M. de Gesvres was willing to part with four pictures by Rubens,
ostensibly on the condition that they were replaced by copies and that
the bargain to which he was consenting remained unknown. My friend
Vaudreix also undertook to persuade M. de Gesvres to sell his chapel.
The negotiations were conducted with entire good faith on the side of
my friend Vaudreix and with charming ingenuousness on the side of Mr.
Harlington, until the day when the Rubenses and the carvings from the
chapel were in a safe place and Mr. Harlington in prison. There remains
nothing, therefore, to be done but to release the unfortunate American,
because he was content to play the modest part of a dupe; to brand the
millionaire Cooley, because, for fear of possible unpleasantness, he
did not protest against his secretary’s arrest; and to congratulate my
friend Étienne de Vaudreix, because he is revenging the outraged
morality of the public by keeping the hundred thousand francs which he
was paid on account by that singularly unattractive person, Cooley.
Pray, pardon the length of this letter and permit me to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
ARSÈNE LUPIN.
Isidore weighed the words of this communication as minutely, perhaps,
as he had studied the document concerning the Hollow Needle. He went on
the principle, the correctness of which was easily proved, that Lupin
had never taken the trouble to send one of his amusing letters to the
press without absolute necessity, without some motive which events were
sure, sooner or later, to bring to light.
What was the motive for this particular letter? For what hidden reason
was Lupin confessing his love and the failure of that love? Was it
there that Beautrelet had to seek, or in the explanations regarding Mr.
Harlington, or further still, between the lines, behind all those words
whose apparent meaning had perhaps no other object than to suggest some
wicked, perfidious, misleading little idea?
For hours, the young man, confined to his compartment, remained pensive
and anxious. The letter filled him with mistrust, as though it had been
written for his benefit and were destined to lead him, personally, into
error. For the first time and because he found himself confronted not
with a direct attack, but with an ambiguous, indefinable method of
fighting, he underwent a distinct sensation of fear. And, when he
thought of his good old, easy-going father, kidnapped through his
fault, he asked himself, with a pang, whether he was not mad to
continue so unequal a contest. Was the result not certain? Had Lupin
not won the game in advance?
It was but a short moment of weakness. When he alighted from his
compartment, at six o’clock in the morning, refreshed by a few hours’
sleep, he had recovered all his confidence.
On the platform, Froberval, the dockyard clerk who had given
hospitality to M. Beautrelet, senior, was waiting for him, accompanied
by his daughter Charlotte, an imp of twelve or thirteen.
“Well?” cried Isidore.
The worthy man beginning to moan and groan, he interrupted him, dragged
him to a neighboring tavern, ordered coffee and began to put plain
questions, without permitting the other the slightest digression:
“My father has not been carried off, has he? It was impossible.”
“Impossible. Still, he has disappeared.”
“Since when?”
“We don’t know.”
“What!”
“No. Yesterday morning, at six o’clock, as I had not seen him come down
as usual, I opened his door. He was gone.”
“But was he there on the day before, two days ago?”
“Yes. On the day before yesterday, he did not leave his room. He was a
little tired; and Charlotte took his lunch up to him at twelve and his
dinner at seven in the evening.”
“So it was between seven o’clock in the evening, on the day before
yesterday, and six o’clock on yesterday morning that he disappeared?”
“Yes, during the night before last. Only—”
“Only what?”
“Well, it’s like this: you can’t leave the arsenal at night.”
“Do you mean that he has not left it?”
“That’s impossible! My friends and I have searched the whole naval
harbor.”
“Then he has left it!”
“Impossible, every outlet is guarded!”
Beautrelet reflected and then said:
“What next?”
“Next, I hurried to the commandant’s and informed the officer in
charge.”
“Did he come to your house?”
“Yes; and a gentleman from the public prosecutor’s also. They searched
all through the morning; and, when I saw that they were making no
progress and that there was no hope left, I telegraphed to you.”
“Was the bed disarranged in his room?”
“No.”
“Nor the room disturbed in any way?”
“No. I found his pipe in its usual place, with his tobacco and the book
which he was reading. There was even this little photograph of yourself
in the middle of the book, marking the page.”
“Let me see it.”
Froberval passed him the photograph. Beautrelet gave a start of
surprise. He had recognized himself in the snapshot, standing, with his
two hands in his pockets, on a lawn from which rose trees and ruins.
Froberval added:
“It must be the last portrait of yourself which you sent him. Look, on
the back, you will see the date, 3 April, the name of the photographer,
R. de Val, and the name of the town, Lion—Lion-sur-Mer, perhaps.”
Isidore turned the photograph over and read this little note, in his
own handwriting:
“R. de Val.—3.4—Lion.”
He was silent for a few minutes and resumed:
“My father hadn’t shown you that snapshot yet?”
“No—and that’s just what astonished me when I saw it yesterday—for your
father used so often to talk to us about you.”
There was a fresh pause, greatly prolonged. Froberval muttered:
“I have business at the workshop. We might as well go in—”
He was silent. Isidore had not taken his eyes from the photograph, was
examining it from every point of view. At last, the boy asked:
“Is there such a thing as an inn called the Lion d’Or at a short league
outside the town?”
“Yes, about a league from here.”
“On the Route de Valognes, is it?”
“Yes, on the Route de Valognes.”
“Well, I have every reason to believe that this inn was the
head-quarters of Lupin’s friends. It was from there that they entered
into communication with my father.”
“What an idea! Your father spoke to nobody. He saw nobody.”
“He saw nobody, but they made use of an intermediary.”
“What proof have you?”
“This photograph.”
“But it’s your photograph!”
“It’s my photograph, but it was not sent by me. I was not even aware of
its existence. It was taken, without my knowledge, in the ruins of
Ambrumésy, doubtless by the examining-magistrate’s clerk, who, as you
know, was an accomplice of Arsène Lupin’s.”
“And then?”
“Then this photograph became the passport, the talisman, by means of
which they obtained my father’s confidence.”
“But who? Who was able to get into my house?”
“I don’t know, but my father fell into the trap. They told him and he
believed that I was in the neighborhood, that I was asking to see him
and that I was giving him an appointment at the Golden Lion.”
“But all this is nonsense! How can you assert—?”
“Very simply. They imitated my writing on the back of the photograph
and specified the meeting-place: Valognes Road, 3 kilometres 400, Lion
Inn. My father came and they seized him, that’s all.”
“Very well,” muttered Froberval, dumbfounded, “very well. I admit
it—things happened as you say—but that does not explain how he was able
to leave during the night.”
“He left in broad daylight, though he waited until dark to go to the
meeting-place.”
“But, confound it, he didn’t leave his room the whole of the day before
yesterday!”
“There is one way of making sure: run down to the dockyard, Froberval,
and look for one of the men who were on guard in the afternoon, two
days ago.—Only, be quick, if you wish to find me here.”
“Are you going?”
“Yes, I shall take the next train back.”
“What!—Why, you don’t know—your inquiry—”
“My inquiry is finished. I know pretty well all that I wanted to know.
I shall have left Cherbourg in an hour.”
Froberval rose to go. He looked at Beautrelet with an air of absolute
bewilderment, hesitated a moment and then took his cap:
“Are you coming, Charlotte?”
“No,” said Beautrelet, “I shall want a few more particulars. Leave her
with me. Besides, I want to talk to her. I knew her when she was quite
small.”
Froberval went away. Beautrelet and the little girl remained alone in
the tavern smoking room. A few minutes passed, a waiter entered,
cleared away some cups and left the room again. The eyes of the young
man and the child met; and Beautrelet placed his hand very gently on
the little girl’s hand. She looked at him for two or three seconds,
distractedly, as though about to choke. Then, suddenly hiding her head
between her folded arms, she burst into sobs.
He let her cry and, after a while, said:
“It was you, wasn’t it, who did all the mischief, who acted as
go-between? It was you who took him the photograph? You admit it, don’t
you? And, when you said that my father was in his room, two days ago,
you knew that it was not true, did you not, because you yourself had
helped him to leave it—?”
She made no reply. He asked:
“Why did you do it? They offered you money, I suppose—to buy ribbons
with a frock—?”
He uncrossed Charlotte’s arms and lifted up her head. He saw a poor
little face all streaked with tears, the attractive, disquieting,
mobile face of one of those little girls who seem marked out for
temptation and weakness.
“Come,” said Beautrelet, “it’s over, we’ll say no more about it. I will
not even ask you how it happened. Only you must tell me everything that
can be of use to me.—Did you catch anything—any remark made by those
men? How did they carry him off?”
She replied at once:
“By motor car. I heard them talking about it—”
“And what road did they take?”
“Ah, I don’t know that!”
“Didn’t they say anything before you—something that might help us?”
“No—wait, though: there was one who said, ‘We shall have no time to
lose—the governor is to telephone to us at eight o’clock in the
morning—’”
“Where to?”
“I can’t say.—I’ve forgotten—”
“Try—try and remember. It was the name of a town, wasn’t it?”
“Yes—a name—like Château—”
“Châteaubriant?—Château-Thierry?—”
“No-no—”
“Châteauroux?”
“Yes, that was it—Châteauroux—”
Beautrelet did not wait for her to complete her sentence. Already he
was on his feet and, without giving a thought to Froberval, without
even troubling about the child, who stood gazing at him in
stupefaction, he opened the door and ran to the station:
“Châteauroux, madame—a ticket for Châteauroux—”
“Over Mans and Tours?” asked the booking-clerk.
“Of course—the shortest way. Shall I be there for lunch?”
“Oh, no!”
“For dinner? Bedtime—?”
“Oh, no! For that, you would have to go over Paris. The Paris express
leaves at nine o’clock. You’re too late—”
It was not too late. Beautrelet was just able to catch the train.
“Well,” said Beautrelet, rubbing his hands, “I have spent only two
hours or so at Cherbourg, but they were well employed.”
He did not for a moment think of accusing Charlotte of lying. Weak,
unstable, capable of the worst treacheries, those petty natures also
obey impulses of sincerity; and Beautrelet had read in her affrighted
eyes her shame for the harm which she had done and her delight at
repairing it in part. He had no doubt, therefore, that Châteauroux was
the other town to which Lupin had referred and where his confederates
were to telephone to him.
On his arrival in Paris, Beautrelet took every necessary precaution to
avoid being followed. He felt that it was a serious moment. He was on
the right road that was leading him to his father: one act of
imprudence might ruin all.
He went to the flat of one of his schoolfellows and came out, an hour
later, irrecognizable, rigged out as an Englishman of thirty, in a
brown check suit, with knickerbockers, woolen stockings and a cap, a
high-colored complexion and a red wig. He jumped on a bicycle laden
with a complete painter’s outfit and rode off to the Gare d’Austerlitz.
He slept that night at Issoudun. The next morning, he mounted his
machine at break of day. At seven o’clock, he walked into the
Châteauroux post-office and asked to be put on to Paris. As he had to
wait, he entered into conversation with the clerk and learnt that, two
days before, at the same hour, a man dressed for motoring had also
asked for Paris.
The proof was established. He waited no longer.
By the afternoon, he had ascertained, from undeniable evidence, that a
limousine car, following the Tours road, had passed through the village
of Buzancais and the town of Châteauroux and had stopped beyond the
town, on the verge of the forest. At ten o’clock, a hired gig, driven
by a man unknown, had stopped beside the car and then gone off south,
through the valley of the Bouzanne. There was then another person
seated beside the driver. As for the car, it had turned in the opposite
direction and gone north, toward Issoudun.
Beautrelet easily discovered the owner of the gig, who, however, had no
information to supply. He had hired out his horse and trap to a man who
brought them back himself next day.
Lastly, that same evening, Isidore found out that the motor car had
only passed through Issoudun, continuing its road toward Orleans, that
is to say, toward Paris.
From all this, it resulted, in the most absolute fashion, that M.
Beautrelet was somewhere in the neighborhood. If not, how was it
conceivable that people should travel nearly three hundred miles across
France in order to telephone from Châteauroux and next to return, at an
acute angle, by the Paris road?
This immense circuit had a more definite object: to move M. Beautrelet
to the place assigned to him.
“And this place is within reach of my hand,” said Isidore to himself,
quivering with hope and expectation. “My father is waiting for me to
rescue him at ten or fifteen leagues from here. He is close by. He is
breathing the same air as I.”